Story 1: The Coming Wipe Out Election of 2014 Drowns Democrats in Defeat and Obama’s Failed Presidency — Republicans Will Control Senate With 56 Senators and House With 250 Representatives — Jobs –Obamacare–Budgets — Scandals (JOBS) Were The Issues — Big Losers: The Washington Political Elitist Establishment (PEEs) and Mainstream Media — Real Winners: Independents and Tea Party Patriots — Balance The Budget and Enforce Immigration Law and Deport The 30-50 Illegal Aliens Now Or You Are Next! — Videos

Suspect in Killing of Deputies Was Twice Deported

Deputy killed, three others hurt in California shooting spree

Suspect in Sacramento deputy shootings now in custody

Illegal alien kills two California sheriff deputies

Confirmed — illegal alien drug dealer cop killer deported twice

Sheriff’s officials have identified the suspect as Marcelo Marquez, but the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said in a statement Saturday that his name actually is Luis Enrique Monroy-Bracamonte.

Glenn Beck On Tea Party Vs Republican Party – O’Reilly

Poll shows independents growing in US

Poll Record High 42 Percent Americans Identify As Independents

Most Political Independents Ever In USA

Reason’s Nick Gillespie on the Rise of the Independent Voter

Dan Mitchell Discussing the Tipping Point when America Becomes a Failed Welfare State

5 Facts About Govt Spending: Nick Gillespie at Reason Weekend 2012

“Politicians are like criminals in Batman comics. They’re a superstitious, cowardly lot. And the minute that they know they’re going to lose elections because they’re spending too much money, they will find their inner cheapskate and start [spending less],” said Reason’s Nick Gillespie during his speech at the Reason Weekend event in Las Vegas. In “5 Unacknowledged, Unexpected, and Unavoidable Facts about Government Spending and the Economy,” Gillespie says politicians such as President Obama and John Boehner are in denial. Influential economists like Paul Krugman and Lawrence Summers correctly diagnose debt as a problem even as they prescribe more debt as the cure. Gillespie argues that: • We’re spending too much. Two wars, entitlement growth, and a massive stimulus are the results of a spending frenzy over the last decade. • We’ve got too much debt. Every level of government is in over their heads. The literal and figurative bankruptcies of cities such as Stockton, California and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania are the canaries in the coal mine. • Debt overhang kills growth. The latest studies are clear: excessive debt, sustained over long periods of time, hurts economic growth. Beyond the cost of higher interest rate payments, increasingly higher debt loads — which Gillespie calls “a ziggurat of doom” — promises to reduce opportunities for everyone. • Spending growth is driven by entitlements. Since the Great Society programs of the 1960s, the government has switched from providing infrastructure and basic services, to being a national insurance broker. The consequences of this are dire because, as statistician Nate Silver notes, “most of us don’t much care for our insurance broker.” • Trust in government is at historic lows. This kind of distrust is an inevitable result of a mismanaged economy. Yet it’s also cause for optimism. Public discontent sow the seeds of reform, allowing the possibility of meaningful fiscal reform. Gillespie’s talk, in which he also sketches solutions to long-term economic malaise, is followed by audience Q&A.

Eight Reasons Why Big Government Hurts Economic Growth

Free Markets and Small Government Produce Prosperity

Want Less Corruption? Shrink the Size of Government

TAKE IT TO THE LIMITS: Milton Friedman on Libertarianism

This interview was filmed February 10, 1999. What are the elements of the libertarian movement and how does one of its most illustrious proponents, Milton Friedman, apply its tenets to issues facing the United States today? Milton Friedman, Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences discusses how he balances the libertarians’ desire for a small, less intrusive government with environmental, public safety, food and drug administration, and other issues.

TAKEOVER: “The Rise Of The Tea Party”

The Tea Party Continuing the Revolution in American Thought

Tea Party America (BBC Documentary)

Yaron Brook at Tea Party Patriots Summit

Will Hunting had it right 14 years ago

George Carlin – It’s a big club and you ain’t in it

George Carlin – Voting

Independments Walk Out of

The Democratic and Republican Parties

The Ventures – Walk Don’t Run

Independent and Tea Party Patriot Candidates

And New Third Party Are In The Pipeline

The Ventures – PIPELINE

U.S. Voters Divided on Party Better to Control Congress

by Jeffrey M. Jones

U.S. registered voters do not have a clear preference on whether the country would be better off if Republicans (29%) or Democrats (27%) controlled Congress, with 40% saying it would be the same regardless of which party is in power. In the 2006 Democratic and 2010 Republican “wave” elections, voters had a clear preference for the party that won. Today’s views are most similar to the 2002 elections, which saw more modest change in the party composition of Congress. The 2006 and 2010 elections were contested at a time when one party had control of the presidency and both houses of Congress, and voters were more likely to think the country would benefit from shifting control of Congress away from the majority party than keeping it with that party. In 2002, as now, party control was divided, with the president’s party having control of one house of Congress but not the other. The blurred lines of accountability could explain why voters did not more clearly show a preference for which party controlled Congress in 2002 or this year. But other aspects of Americans’ current mood look more like they did in 2006 and 2010 — and in other years, such as 1982 and 1994, in which there were major shakeups in congressional membership — than in 2002. These include their subpar ratings of the job performance of the president and of Congress, and their low satisfaction with the direction of the country as a whole. The president’s party typically loses seats in midterm elections, but those losses tend to be greater when Americans’ approval ratings of the president, and of Congress, are relatively poor, and when Americans are not satisfied with the way things are going in the United States. In years like 1986, 1998 and 2002, when Americans were generally upbeat about the state of the nation, there tended to be less change in the membership of Congress in the midterm elections. Importantly, though these key indicators are still low on an absolute basis, most of the current updates are a bit more positive than what Gallup measured earlier this year. For example, congressional job approval has averaged 14% so far in 2014 and has not been as high as the current 20% since just before the 2012 elections. Also, the current 27% satisfied with the way things are going in the United States exceeds the 2014 average to date of 23%; satisfaction was last at this level in July 2013. President Barack Obama’s job approval rating, 44% in the Oct. 29-Nov. 2 poll, is nominally more positive, but not significantly different from, the 42% he has averaged in Gallup Daily tracking over the past week. Americans’ improving economic confidence may be one reason the current national mood indicators are a bit more positive than they have been. And while the level of improvement is not enough to fundamentally erase the Republicans’ advantage going into Tuesday’s elections, it does suggest the negative climate that has been providing the wind at the GOP’s back may not be quite strong as it was a few months, or even weeks, ago. Implications The national political climate, as measured by several key indicators of Americans’ satisfaction with current conditions in the country and how the nation is being governed, usually gives a strong sense of which way a midterm election will go. And this year, with a Democratic president in office and Americans in a generally negative mood, the fundamentals point to 2014 being a better year for the Republican Party than the Democratic Party. Indeed, the general consensus among political experts is that the Republicans will increase their majority in the House of Representatives and could win control of the Senate. And though the key indicators are about as negative this year as they have been in past wave elections, 2014 may not see the same level of shakeup in Congress as was the case in 2006, 2010 and other years. The key variable working against a 2014 wave may be that divided party control in Washington already exists when it did not in 1994, 2006 and 2010, and thus, frustrated voters this year have no clear way to act on their frustration by changing the party composition of the federal government. With Obama in office for two more years and little chance of Republicans losing their House majority, divided government should still be in place regardless of which party has the Senate majority, and the way the nation is governed over the next two years may not materially change. Survey Methods Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Oct. 29-Nov. 2, 2014, with a random sample of 1,832 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. For results based on the total sample of 1,590 registered voters, the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 50% cellphone respondents and 50% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

Segment 1: Republican Senators and Representatives Traitors To The Principle of Fiscal Responsibility and Conservative and Tea Party Movement — Republican Conservative, Libertarian and Tea Party Base Will Take Out The Republican Budget Big Interventionist Government Spenders — Videos

US budget deal clears key Senate hurdle

Boehner lashes out at conservative groups over fragile budget deal

Budget Deal Exposes GOP Split Fox News Sunday Panel w Chris Wallace

Senate Republicans split over budget deal

Budget Deal Disappointment: Dr. Coburn on Morning Joe 12/11/2013

Grover Norquist – President of Americans for Tax Reform

Sen. Rand Paul on state of GOP, new budget deal

John Boehner places blame for horrid Congress where it belongs

By David Horsey

Setting new lows for accomplishment in its first year, the 113th Congress is on track to wrest the title of Worst Congress Ever from the horrid 112th Congress. House Speaker John A. Boehner bears a great deal of blame for this dismal record, but he can be commended for finally calling out the conservative activist organizations that have been cheering on the congressional drive toward ignominy.

Last week, with Congress on the verge of actually doing something – passing a compromise two-year budget that would avoid another disastrous government shutdown – right-wing groups such as the Club for Growth, Heritage Action and the tea party umbrella organization FreedomWorks demanded that Republicans vote against the spending plan and threatened that a “yes” vote could be used against incumbents in the 2014 GOP primaries.

At long last, Boehner had had enough. In a news conference Wednesday, the speaker hammered the conservative hard-liners, saying: “They’re using our members and they’re using the American people for their own goals. This is ridiculous. If you’re for more deficit reduction, you’re for this agreement.”

In another gathering with reporters Thursday, Boehner took a repeat shot. “I think they’re pushing our members in places where they don’t want to be,” he said. “And frankly, I just think that they’ve lost all credibility.”

Boehner went on to lay blame for October’s government shutdown squarely with the right-wing money groups. Those groups pushed the shutdown as a bold plan, encouraging the tea party faction of the House Republicans to resist more moderate voices in their caucus. “My members know that wasn’t exactly the strategy I had in mind,” the speaker said.

Besides the satisfaction of seeing Boehner smack down the people who have helped turn the Republican Party into a narrow cult of neo-Confederates, it is gratifying to have him lay bare the preposterous lie many of his conservative compatriots tried to foist on the American people at the time of the shutdown. The very right-wingers who engineered the government closure and were eager for a rejection of the debt ceiling raise, including Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Michele Bachmann and the whole crew on Fox News, are the ones who tried to pin blame for it all on President Obama. Unsurprisingly, the faction of Americans who live in a paranoid, Obama-fearing bubble eagerly swallowed this canard.

Now, though, the Republican speaker has spoken the truth. One can hope it is the first small step toward the Grand Old Party being restored to sanity and the first sign that Congress is edging toward redemption.

Hatch Joins Other Republicans in Supporting Budget Deal

Support for a compromise two-year budget deal grew on Monday ahead of a Tuesday vote in the Senate as Republicans concluded that a measure that achieved overwhelming bipartisan support in the House could not die in Congress’s upper chamber.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, announced his support for the measure on Monday, appearing to give it the 60 votes it would need to overcome a filibuster threat and bring it to a final vote, which would need only a majority. Mr. Hatch joined Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona, Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, all Republicans who have said they will vote to cut off debate.

“This agreement isn’t everything I’d hoped it would be, and it isn’t what I would have written,” Mr. Hatch said. “But sometimes the answer has to be yes. The reality is that Republicans only control one-half of one-third of government.”

The deal, struck by Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, and Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, sailed through the House last week but ran into a toxic mix of re-election politics, presidential positioning and hurt feelings in the Senate.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, held a rare session on Sunday to formally file to end debate on the measure. Business groups, including the Business Roundtable, which represents the chief executives of the largest American corporations, pressed Senate Republicans to get on board, countering pressure from conservative groups that oppose the deal.

“The Ryan-Murray budget legislation, while not perfect, offers stability and the opportunity for the U.S. government to once again operate responsibly within the confines of an approved budget. It is both balanced and fiscally responsible. We are confident that if enacted it would help provide a platform for greater investment, job creation, and growth,” wrote Randall Stephenson, chairman-elect of the roundtable and chief executive of AT&T.

Mr. Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee and his party’s vice-presidential nominee in 2012, and Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio worked behind the scenes to win support from Senate Republicans.

And with a public showdown looming, undecided Republicans decided on Monday to come off the fence. Even some Republicans who had privately signaled opposition last week were coming around, convinced that a deal that passed the House 332-94, with a strong majority of Republicans behind it, could not be derailed in the Senate.

Washington (CNN) – The budget deal struck by Republican and Democratic lawmakers that easily passed the House of Representatives last week has run into some opposition in the Senate. But according to CNN’s vote count, the deal appears to be nearing passage.

There are currently a total of 36 aye votes for the budget, according to the count, with four Republicans joining 31 Democrats and one independent. All no votes, according to the count, are coming from Republicans, with 20 Senate offices telling CNN they plan to vote against the deal.

While Democrats do not have the 50 votes needed for final passage, top aides in both parties privately expressed confidence on Friday the bill will get the necessary support, even if a couple of wary moderate Democrats end up voting “no.”

But before the measure faces a final vote, it will need to pass the higher threshold of 60 votes to clear procedural hurdles. But Republicans – like Richard Burr of North Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona – have said they plan to back the motions that will eventually allow Democrats to only need a straight majority to pass the bill.

The four Republicans who plan to support the deal are Susan Collins of Maine, John McCain of Arizona, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Orrin Hatch of Utah.

Hatch is the most recent Republican to come out in support of the bill. In a Monday statement, the Republican lawmaker said that “this agreement isn’t everything I’d hoped it would be, and it isn’t what I would have written. But sometimes the answer has to be yes.”

“The reality is that Republicans only control one-half of one-third of government,” Hatch said. “Ultimately, this agreement upholds the principles conservatives stand for and, with Democrats controlling the White House and the Senate, it is the best we could hope for.”

The deal worked out by House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray soared through the house, passing by a 332-94 vote. The budget – while smaller than some had wanted – is a bright spot of bipartisanship in what has been a year full of bitter partisanship.

For many, the deal represents a way to ensure that government doesn’t shut down again – like it did for 16 days in October.

In the Senate, however, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have questioned aspects of the deal. More liberal senators – like Tom Harkin for Iowa – complained that an unemployment benefit extension was not included in the deal.

“There’s over a million people now who cannot find a job, out of work, and right at this time of year their unemployment insurance is being cut off,” Harkin told Radio Iowa last week. “It’s really unconscionable.”

If lawmakers don’t act, unemployment benefits – at a cost of $26 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office – will expire for 1.3 million workers on December 28.

On the other side, more conservative members of the the Senate – like John Thune of South Dakota – told CNN he can’t support the deal because it doesn’t “include meaningful spending reforms that address our debt and deficit.”

Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, along with other senators, have also raised question about reductions in cost of living benefits for military retirees.

“After careful review of the agreement, I believe it will do disproportionate harm to our military retirees,” Graham said in a release. “Our men and women in uniform have served admirably during some of our nation’s most troubling times. They deserve more from us in their retirement than this agreement provides.”

Over a quarter of the Senate remains on the fence – with 27 members, including 12 Democrats – telling CNN they have not yet decided how they plan to vote. Representatives from five offices – two Democrats and three Republicans – told CNN they are not announcing how they are voting.

“I will look closely at the details of this budget and evaluate how it meets the needs of New Mexicans and our country as a whole,” Democrat Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico told CNN. Republicans also remain undecided, like John Cornyn of Texas, whose spokesman told CNN that the senator “will take a close look” at the deal but “is concerned about reversing spending cuts.”

For this vote count, CNN has reached out to all 100 Senate offices and 12 have not responded.

The deal passed the House 332-94, with 62 Republicans and 32 Democrats voting against it. The bill is expected to come up for votes in the Senate early next week, either Monday or Tuesday.

The type of filibuster Sessions spoke of is not the traditional “talking filibuster” like the one Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) launched earlier this year to protest Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama’s drone policies. It is a procedural filibuster, The Hill reports, that would require Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to at least twice obtain 60 votes to pass the bill.

“They’ll need 60 votes on cloture and 60 votes on the budget point of order,” Sessions said, according to The Hill.

Since there are only 55 Democrats in the U.S. Senate, Reid will twice need at least five Republicans to break from their party and support the budget deal. Reid may need more Republicans if liberals like Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA) or Bernie Sanders (I-VT) oppose the deal because it does not extend unemployment benefits. Considering 32 Democrats voted against the deal in the House, it seems plausible Reid may lose at least one, maybe two Democrats in the Senate.

Senate Republicans largely seem unified against the bill. As of late Thursday, not one Senate Republican confirmed suppot of the plan.

Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), and Roger Wicker (R-MS), who usually support similar measures, have each announced their opposition.

Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) is undecided as of this point, and while Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)—easily the Senate’s most liberal Republican—has said he is leaning “yes,” he has not yet committed to voting for the deal, citing concerns with military pension cuts in it.

Appropriators like Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have not committed either, according to Roll Call.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the Majority Whip in the Senate, confirmed to reporters on Thursday that the Democrats need GOP votes to make this happen.

“We need Republican votes to pass the budget agreement, period,” Durbin said. “We need at least five, and I’m hoping that there’ll be more than that. There are not five who Republicans have announced they’re for it, I mean to my knowledge, and I hope there are many more than that, and they’re just holding back for any number of reasons.”

While the deal is more likely to pass the Senate than not, the question becomes about which Republicans — if any — Reid will be able to attract to support the Ryan budget deal.

It’s war! Senate gears up for epic battle as ZERO Republicans line up to support budget agreement (and Democrats need to find at least five)

Congress needs to pass a new budget by January 15 to avoid another government shutdown

Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray negotiated a framework and tried to sell it to their respective majorities

The GOP-led House passed the plan Thursday night despite complaints from tea partiers and other budget hawks

But objections from Senate Republicans, including a claim that the plan restores spending cuts by shortchanging veterans’ pensions, could kill it

A landmark budget agreement that passed in the U.S. House on Thursday faces certain death in the Senate unless at least five Republicans step up to support it – but so far there are no takers at all.

The GOP’s Senate leaders plan to launch a procedural effort to kill the plan over a laundry list of objections – including a claim that it short-changes military veterans and other government retirees.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin conceded that he needs to find Republicans who will vote for the measure after Republicans announced their intention Thursday night to block the deal.

‘We need Republican votes to pass the budget agreement, period,’ Durbin told reporters on Thursday. ‘We need at least five. And I’m hoping that there will be more than that.’

Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and the third-most powerful Senate leader, acknowledged that ‘there are not five Republicans who have announced they’re for it.’

In fact, no Republican senators have publicly said that they will vote in favor of the agreement that Republican Rep. Paul Ryan and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray unveiled Tuesday evening.

Their plan would roll back $63 billion in mandatory cuts from the so-called budget sequester that took effect in March. Some of that restored spending would be offset by cuts to military and civilian government pensions.

Annual cost-of-living increases in most military veterans’ retirement benefits would be cut by 1 per cent, an amount that the Military Officers Association of America says could cost a typical former soldier or sailor $80,000 over a 20-year period.

The GOP’s three most senior senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have announced that they will vote ‘no.’

Senators Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, all considered top-tier presidential contenders in 2016, are all lined up against the measure.

The proposal ‘spends more, taxes more, and allows continued funding for Obamacare,’ Cruz said Thursday. ‘I cannot support it.’

Rubio emailed supporters on Wednesday, saying that the agreement Ryan and Murray negotiated over a six-week period ‘continues Washington’s irresponsible budgeting decisions by spending more money than the government takes in and placing additional financial burdens on everyday Americans.’

House Speaker John Boehner fanned the flames of a civil war inside the GOP by slamming conservative groups that opposed the budget deal — but it could all be for nought if his Senate colleagues decide to kill it

And Paul said in a statement that the March sequester cuts ‘were not nearly enough to address our deficit problem. Undoing tens of billions of this modest spending restraint is shameful and must be opposed.’

Other Republicans who face primary challenges from tea party-backed candidates are also vowing to cast ‘no’ votes.

‘After careful review of the agreement, I believe it will do disproportionate harm to our military retirees,’ South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a statement.

‘Our men and women in uniform have served admirably during some of our nation’s most troubling times. They deserve more from us in their retirement than this agreement provides.’

‘I do not support paying for increased federal spending on the backs of our retired and active duty troops,’ Wicker’s Thursday statement read. ‘Congress should not change the rules in the middle of the game for those who have chosen to serve our nation in the military. … The plan should be rejected.’

Other Republicans object to what one GOP Senate staffer told MailOnline is the agreement’s ‘pixie dust approach to budgeting.’

‘We’re doing what we always do,’ said the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ‘We set out a ten-year plan while knowing full well that we have a decade to undo it and shift gears again.’

The GOP’s parliamentary roadblocks will have the same effect as a traditional filibuster without consuming countless hours of Senate time when the measure is considered early next week.

Even if Senate Democrats manage to find enough Republican support to pass the agreement, it won’t have the force of law.

What Ryan and Murray proposed Wednesday is merely a framework for a budget that has yet to be written. Members of Congress who sit on appropriation committees will still be required to craft – and pass in both houses – a final budget bill by January 15.

Unless they can pull it off, the federal government will be headed for its second shutdown in three months.

Sen. Mike Lee • ObamaCare • Budget Deal • Hannity • 12/11/13 •

Mark Levin to Paul Ryan: Budget Deal is ‘Mickey Mouse’

Two year budget deal announced to avoid gov’t shut down

Reaction to lawmakers announcing budget agreement

New Budget Deal Announced By Ryan and Murray

Key congressional budget negotiators on Tuesday said they reached a budget agreement to avert a government shutdown and bring a rare dose of stability to Congress’s fiscal policy-making over the next two years.

Key lawmakers from both parties announced Tuesday a bipartisan budget proposal that would avoid another government shutdown and restore some defense spending that would have been lost to upcoming sequester cuts.

Rep. Paul Ryan, brushing aside objections from some fiscal conservatives that the proposal would undo spending caps that have helped slow the growth of the federal deficit, told reporters the compromise is a win for the GOP.

Mr. Ryan, at a joint news conference with Sen. Patty Murray, Washington Democrat, said the spending plan calls for reducing the deficit by $23 billion over 10 years without raising taxes.

The Wisconsin Republican, the House’s chief budget writer, said the deal would reverse about $65 billion in previously agreed-upon automatic spending cuts to the military and other government programs.

“I see this agreement as a step in the right direction,” he said. “In divided government, you don’t always get what you want. That said, we still can make progress toward our goals. I see this agreement as that kind of progress.”

“Earlier this year, I called on Congress to work together on a balanced approach to a budget that grows our economy faster and creates more jobs — not through aimless, reckless spending cuts that harm our economy now, but by making sure we can afford to invest in the things that have always grown our economy and strengthened our middle class,” Mr. Obama said. “Today’s bipartisan budget agreement is a good first step.”

The House-Senate deal sets the top-line spending number at $1.012 trillion for the rest of the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, and $1.014 trillion for fiscal 2015, which begins Oct. 1.

The proposed spending is more than the levels lawmakers approved in the 2011 Budget Control Act, which would have capped non-mandatory government spending at $967 billion in 2014, with the cuts coming from, among other places, the military, Veterans Affairs and the FBI.

The details of the deal remained sketchy as of press time, though Mr. Ryan and Mrs. Murray said they would post the proposal on their respective websites and it would require that federal employees and members of the military pay more for their retirement benefits.

“We think it’s only right and fair that they pay something more toward their pensions just like the hardworking taxpayer who pays for those pensions in the first place,” Mr. Ryan said.

The deal faces challenges from both the political left and the right, with conservatives warning that they could not support a deal that increased spending levels and liberals pushing back against making federal employees contribute more to their pensions.

Democrats also are frustrated with the growing prospect that Congress will not come up with the $26 billion to extend unemployment benefits for more than 1.3 million people through the end of next year.

Mrs. Murray acknowledged that neither side got everything it wanted, but that the compromise will bring some stability to a government that has been run by fiscal crisis for years.

“We have some differences in policies, but we agree that our country needs some certainty and we need to show that we can work together,” she said.

Conservative groups, meanwhile, pushed back against reports that the deal includes higher “fees” and other gimmicks that critics say are tax hikes in disguise, including fees on airline tickets.

Chris Edwards, editor of DownsizingGovernment.org at the Cato Institute, said it would be hard for Republicans to get conservatives to back a proposal that surrenders ground on the sequesters.

“Politically, I just think it’s crazy for Republicans. Here is the one big thing, they can say, ‘We held President Obama’s feet to the fire and passed the Budget Control Act of 2011.’ It’s really paying dividends now, spending has been flat for the past two years,” he said. “They are going to be throwing away their single biggest accomplishment on fiscal policy for the past few years. It would be like President Obama throwing away Obamacare.”

By breaking the budget caps set in 2011, the deal also sets the precedent that the numbers can be changed in future years, Mr. Edwards said.

“[Appropriators] are just playing trench warfare, pushing the trench forward a year at a time. If they break the cap this year, they’ll feel empowered to push hard and try to break the caps next year,” he said.

Heritage Action said that it could not support a budget deal that “would increase spending in the near-term for promises of woefully inadequate long-term reductions.”

“While imperfect, the sequester has proven to be an effective tool in forcing Congress to reduce discretionary spending, and a gimmicky, spend-now-cut-later deal will take our nation in the wrong direction,” the conservative think tank said in a statement.

Mr. Ryan said the House would vote on the plan before the end of the week and launched a pre-emptive strike against potential critics of the plan.

“As a conservative, I deal with the situation as it exists,” Mr. Ryan said. “I deal with the way things are, not necessarily the way I want them to be.”

US congressional leaders unveil two-year budget deal

Congress was on the verge of the first bipartisan budget deal in nearly three decades on Tuesday night after Democrat and Republican negotiators unveiled a proposal to fix federal spending at $1.012tn.

The long-awaited agreement struck between senator Patty Murray and congressman Paul Ryan staves off the threat of another government shutdown for two years and will relieve the worst effects of blanket budget cuts known as the sequester.

Aspects of the deal may alarm both parties, particularly Democrats, who are being asked to accept additional spending cuts, no new taxes and increased pension contributions from public sector workers.

Nevertheless the prospect of ending years of political deadlock appeared to satisfy political leaders of both parties, whose expectations have been lowered by the recent government shutdown and a virtual standstill on a host of other issues.

Barack Obama declared the budget deal “a good first step” and both House speaker John Boehner and and majority leader Eric Cantor indicated they would allow a vote to pass with a mixture of Republican and Democrat support.

Congress has been deadlocked over the budget since Democrats lost control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections and the proposal from Murray and Ryan represents the first realistic chance of a divided government agreeing a formal budget since 1986.

If passed by the House and Senate, the two-year deal would fix federal spending at $1.012tn in 2014 and $1.014tn in 2015 – roughly halfway between the $1.058tn sought by Democrats in the Senate and the $967bn proposed by the Republican-controlled House.

The blanket sequester cuts would be reduced by $63bn over the two years, split equally between defence and non-defence spending, although Republicans also succeeded in negotiating a further $20-$23bn in deficit reduction.

Rather than raising new taxes to pay for the sequester relief – something Republicans were implacably opposed to – negotiators agreed to raise additional government revenue through fees, such as airport charges and by demanding that federal workers pay more toward their pensions.

Union umbrella group, the AFL-CIO, has already hit out at the proposal, arguing that federal workers were acting as a “punching bag” for Republicans.

There was also no agreement over the vexed issue of long-term unemployment benefits, which are due to expire shortly, or any agreement on medicare or social security reforms, which Republicans had been pushing for.

Senator Patty Murray, Democratic chair of the budget committee, admitted much was missing from the deal.

We need to acknowledge that there are long-term structural problems that this deal does not address,” she told reporters. “This deal does not solve all of our problems but it is an important step.”

“For far too long here in Washington DC, compromise has been a dirty word, especially when it comes to the budget,” added Murray.

“For years we have lurched from crisis to crisis. That uncertainty was devastating to our fragile economic recovery.”

Ryan also portrayed the deal as a major breakthrough but played down expectations among his own supporters.

“The agreement is a clear improvement on the status quo … it makes sure we don’t lurch from crisis to crisis,” said the chairman of the House budget committee.

“We have been talking all year, but that hard work has paid off. In divided government you don’t always get what you want.”

The proposal, which will be voted on by the House later this week, was also welcomed by the White House.

“This agreement doesn’t include everything I’d like – and I know many Republicans feel the same way,” President Obama said in a statement. “That’s the nature of compromise. But it’s a good sign that Democrats and Republicans in Congress were able to come together and break the cycle of short-sighted, crisis-driven decision-making to get this done.”

All-out war breaks out in GOP over budget

Tea party groups and fiscal conservatives wasted no time Wednesday in savaging a bipartisan budget agreement negotiated between House Republicans and Senate Democrats, drawing an unusually angry response from House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.

All sides were rating the winners and losers in the deal struck a day earlier between House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, Washington Democrat. The modest deficit-cutting deal had some sweeteners for defense contractors and oil drillers, while air travelers, federal workers and some corporate executives would take a hit.

But most of the passion focused on the politics of the deal, with Mr. Ryan, Mr. Boehner and the House GOPleadership defending their handiwork from attacks from conservative colleagues on Capitol Hill and from outside groups such as the Club for Growth, Heritage Action and Americans for Prosperity. Critics said the agreement effectively raised taxes in the form of higher fees, failed to restrain entitlement programs and permitted new spending in the short term in exchange for vague promises of long-term cuts.

Rep. Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, said in an interview that Republicans sacrificed their biggest point of leverage — the tough “sequester” spending cuts that were already in force — in the rush to get a short-term deal that did not address the long-term costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

“I am against [the deal] from just a basic point that we embarked on a position at the beginning of the year that said, ‘We will keep the sequester in place unless we get to make changes on mandatory spending that will save those program and put the budget on path to balance within the next 10 years,’” Mr. Jordan said.

Added Chris Chocola, president of the fiscally hawkish Club for Growth, “Apparently, there are some Republicans who don’t have the stomach for even relatively small spending reductions that are devoid of budgetary smoke and mirrors. If Republicans work with Democrats to pass this deal, it should surprise no one when Republican voters seek alternatives who actually believe in less spending when they go to the ballot box.”

Despite conservative unhappiness and tepid reviews from many House Democrats, the proposal could be voted on in the House as early as Thursday and Mr. Ryan said Wednesday on CNN that he is confident he has the votes to pass the bill.

Mr. Boehner used unusually pointed language in hitting back at conservative opponents of the deal, charging that critics opposed the agreement even before knowing what was in it.

“They’re using our members and the American people to their own purposes,” an angry Mr. Boehner said. “This is ridiculous.”

But several Republican senators, including Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn, immediately came out against the deal and many other Republican senators are expected to oppose the accord.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated Wednesday that the bulk of the plan’s deficit reduction would come in the final three years of the deal, while the new spending would happen over the next two years.

The estimate followed news that the U.S. government ran a $135.2 billion budget deficit through the first two months of the year — well short of the $226.8 billion deficit the nation had built up by this time a year ago. The Treasury Department said that more revenue was coming into the federal government thanks to higher tax rates and an improving economy.

The Ryan-Murray agreement increases spending in 2014 to $1.012 trillion and in 2015 to $1.014 trillion and restores more than $60 billion in sequester spending cuts.

The new spending is offset in part by lowering the cost-of-living adjustment for military retirees, requiring higher pension contributions from recently hired federal employees and raising fees on travelers collected by the Transportation Security Administration.

Some winners in the deal included the Pentagon and the defense industry, where much of the defense-related sequester cuts were restored, and the energy industry, which won expanded rights for joint drilling along the U.S.-Mexico border and in the Gulf of Mexico.

Industries and interests that emerged as losers in the final deal were quick to make their unhappiness known.

“As we have said consistently, airlines and our customers are already overtaxed, and we are disappointed that fees on air travel were increased, and believe those higher taxes will impact demand, jobs and our economy,” said Katie Connell, spokeswoman for Airlines for America, a Washington-based trade group representing U.S. airlines.

The National Treasury Employees Union launched a pre-emptive strike against the proposal, saying last week that federal employees had suffered enough under pay freezes and furloughs.

“We continue to believe that there should be zero cuts to federal pay and benefits in this deal and that federal employees are being asked to contribute a disproportionate share toward deficit reduction,” the group said Wednesday.

National Nurses United took issues with the cuts aimed at federal workers, especially nurses working in Veterans Affairs hospitals.

“There is no reason to cheer an agreement that requires unwarranted pension cuts for federal workers, including VA nurses who earned that pension, underfunds nutrition programs and fails to extend assistance for the long-term unemployed,” said Jean Ross, co-president of the nurses group.

Military members said they are also bearing more than their fair share of the government’s financial problems. Military retirees’ cost-of-living allowance will be decreased to 1 percent below the inflation rate, leading to a 20 percent cut to retirement benefits over their lives, according to a statement from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

“The budget agreement balances the budget on the backs of military retirees. It’s the latest example of how Washington is broken, forcing those who have sacrificed the most over the last 10 years to choose between this deal, sequestration or government shutdown,” said Paul Rieckhoff, chief executive officer of IAVA.

Many liberal lawmakers said the federal budget should not be balanced on the backs of federal workers and that the bill could have trouble passing if it does not extend unemployment insurance for the 1.3 million Americans who are set to get kicked off the rolls before the end of the year.

Tea partiers turn on Capitol Hill budget deal

Tea party and conservative groups pounced on the budget proposal that congressional leaders carved out behind closed doors, saying that the plan is based on the faulty premise of increasing spending now in exchange for future spending cuts that will never materialize.

They said that House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, the GOP budget negotiator, can kiss goodbye any chance of winning over grassroots activists if he chooses to run for president in 2016 after he surrendered ground on across-the-board “sequester” cuts to spending rolled back in the new deal.

“While no one was expecting a grand bargain, we hoped that the budget leaders would stand by the only fiscally responsible accomplishment of Obama’s presidency: sequestration,” said Amy Kremer, chairwoman of the Tea Party Express. “This budget deal creates a faux peace in Washington, D.C., while burdening taxpayers by sweeping the impending fiscal crisis under the rug.”

Mr. Ryan and Senate Budget Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray, Washington Democrat, announced late Tuesday that they had reached a two-year budget deal that would reduce the deficit by $23 billion over ten years without raising taxes.

The proposal restored $63 billion on the across-the-board “sequester” cuts to defense and non-defense programs. It also included higher fees on airline travel and requires federal employees to contribute more for their retirement benefits.

Judson Phillips, the leader of Tea Party Nation, likened the proposal to a character in the long-running comic strip Popeye, calling it “the Wellington Wimpy budget deal.”

“Paul Ryan is telling America that he will gladly pay us Tuesday for a hamburger today,” Mr. Phillips said. “It should forever dissuade us of the idea that the Republican Party is the party of fiscal conservatism.”

Mr. Phillips said that Mr. Ryan has shown that he is “is another Washington insider who will talk to the public about how fiscally conservative he is and then he goes to Washington and wants to spend money like a drunken Democrat.”

“As far as the conservative movement is concern, Ryan is not only the 2016 candidate of ‘no,’ but ‘hell no.’ There is no way he will have grassroots support after this deal,” he said.

For his part, Mr. Ryan, who has no ruled out a presidential run, told reporters that the the plan is a step in the right direction because it achieves deficit reduction without increasing taxes.

“As a conservative, I deal with the situation as it exists,” Mr. Ryan said. “I deal with the way things are, not necessarily the way things I want them to be.”

Mark Leibovich defends his insider account of DC culture

“This Town” author Mark Leibovich talked to Glenn Beck on TheBlaze TV and discussed the book

Mark Leibovich on Glitz and Greed in Washington

Mark Leibovich “This Town”

“This Town” Author Mark Leibovich on Shaming D.C.’s Elite

“People now come here to get rich,” explains Mark Leibovich, chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine and author of the DC-centered book This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral – plus plenty of valet parking! – in America’s Gilded Capital. “Twenty years ago, theoretically, this was a city built on public service.”

From the ugly networking at Tim Russert’s funeral to the incestuous relationship between media and politicians to the naked desire to cash out on one’s “public service” by becoming a lobbyist, Leibovich’s horrifying peek at life within Washington’s elite has something to offend every American.

“What I try to do is give voice to the entire carnival here,” Leibovich tells Reason’s Nick Gillespie. “[I wanted] to give readers outside of Washington…a fuller sense of what the full movie looks like.”

Segment 0: U.S. Dirty Debt Bomb Exploding — The First Shock Wave Hits — National Debt Increases Record $328 Billion in One Day — National Debt Over $17 Trillion — By February Will Hit $17.5 Trillion — Videos

Not Raising Debt Ceiling Won’t Put U.S. In Default – Ron Paul

Tom Coburn Tears Credit Card Poster On Senate Floor

GOP Sen. Tom Coburn Rips Up US Government Credit Card on TV, Gretchen Carlson Thanks Him

Coburn on Greatest Threat Facing the Country: Our Debt

Dr. Coburn addressing his colleagues in the Senate today, warning Congress of the dire consequences that will ensue if politics in Washington continues as usual: “Our country has a history of doing hard things. What we lack is leadership to call us to do those hard things. We find ourselves at a point in time where the greatest threat to our nation is our debt and our economy. We’re risking our future, not only our future economically but our future of liberty.”

Dr. Coburn on Charlie Rose on US Debt Crisis, Leadership Deficit in Washington

How to Fix Our Fiscal Crisis

How Big Is the U.S. Debt?

Economics professor Antony Davies illustrates the size the U.S. federal government’s debt and unfunded obligations. He breaks down the total U.S. debt and obligations into parts and compares them with the size of the GDP of countries around the world, showing the magnitude of America’s fiscal situation.

The $328 billion increase is an all-time record, shattering the previous high of $238 billion set two years ago.

The giant jump comes because the government was replenishing its stock of “extraordinary measures” — the federal funds it borrowed from over the last five months as it tried to avoid bumping into the debt ceiling.

Under the law, that replenishing happens as soon as there is new debt space.

In this case, the Treasury Department borrowed $400 billion from other funds beginning in May, awaiting a final deal from Congress and Mr. Obama.

Usually Congress sets a borrowing limit, or debt ceiling, that caps the total amount the government can be in the red.

But under the terms of this week’s deal, Congress set a deadline instead of a dollar cap. That means debt can rise as much as Mr. Obama and Congress want it to, until the Feb. 7 deadline.

Judging by the rate of increase over the last five months, that could end up meaning Congress just granted Mr. Obama a debt increase of $700 billion or more.

Republicans initially sought to attach strings to the debt increase, but surrendered this week, instead settling on a bill that reopened the government and included some special earmark projects, but didn’t include any spending cuts.

Democrats insisted that the debt increase be “clean,” meaning without any strings attached. They say the debt increase only allows Mr. Obama to pay for the bills he and Congress already racked up, and that it doesn’t encourage new spending.

U.S. debt jumped more than $300 billion on Thursday, the first day the federal government was able to borrow money under the deal President Obama and Congress sealed this week.

The $328 billion increase is an all-time record, shattering the previous high of $238 billion set two years ago.

The giant jump comes because the government was replenishing its stock of “extraordinary measures” — the federal funds it borrowed from over the last five months as it tried to avoid bumping into the debt ceiling.

Under the law, that replenishing happens as soon as there is new debt space.

In this case, the Treasury Department borrowed $400 billion from other funds beginning in May, awaiting a final deal from Congress and Mr. Obama.

Usually Congress sets a borrowing limit, or debt ceiling, that caps the total amount the government can be in the red.

But under the terms of this week’s deal, Congress set a deadline instead of a dollar cap. That means debt can rise as much as Mr. Obama and Congress want it to, until the Feb. 7 deadline.

Judging by the rate of increase over the last five months, that could end up meaning Congress just granted Mr. Obama a debt increase of $700 billion or more.

Republicans initially sought to attach strings to the debt increase, but surrendered this week, instead settling on a bill that reopened the government and included some special earmark projects, but didn’t include any spending cuts.

Democrats insisted that the debt increase be “clean,” meaning without any strings attached. They say the debt increase only allows Mr. Obama to pay for the bills he and Congress already racked up, and that it doesn’t encourage new spending.

Analysis: Debt fight dings U.S. Treasury bills’ status

By Richard Leong

(Reuters) – The safe-haven reputation of U.S. Treasury bills took a beating during the latest debt ceiling fight in Washington, and it won’t be regained soon, even after the last-minute deal to avert a threatened default.

The temporary agreement to lift the government’s debt limit may only pave the way for another political struggle between President Barack Obama and Republican lawmakers in early 2014 over the federal budget and borrowing levels.

While others measure the toll on the economy from the 16-day federal government shutdown, Wall Street is fretting over the future appetite for U.S. debt and its effect on federal borrowing costs.

During the next three-and-a-half months before the next debt ceiling deadline, the U.S. government might pay higher interest rates on its short-term debt.

Before the shutdown, the Treasury was selling one-month debt at next to nothing. The rise in yields as a result of the crisis will cost the Treasury an estimated $56 million more in interest payments than it would have incurred had this month’s auctions been sold in September.

While some one-month T-bill rates saw their yields decline to 0.02 to 0.03 percent after jumping above 0.70 percent less than 24 hours earlier, bills maturing in February still showed modestly elevated yields. If Washington repeats the battle that ended on Wednesday, bill rates would likely jump again.

“There’s a fundamental change in their risk profile. There’s a growing lack of confidence. It’s going to be problematic,” said Tom Nelson, chief investment officer at Reich & Tang, a New York-based cash management firm that oversees more than $33 billion in assets.

Investors are frustrated that they are forced to shun certain T-bill issues because of the self-imposed fiscal deadlines of politicians. Some of them want additional compensation to buy T-bills given the possibility of default every few months, even though most think the risk is very low.

Chances of a default seemed almost unfathomable three weeks ago before the debt ceiling showdown that accompanied the first partial government shutdown in 17 years.

“The reason you’re holding short Treasuries is because of their unparalleled safety and liquidity. If you’re not getting safety and liquidity, there’s no point in having them,” said Gregory Whiteley, who manages a $53 billion government bond portfolio at DoubleLine Capital in Los Angeles.

Before the political impasse ended, interest rates on T-bill issues set to mature in the second half of October through the first half of November hit five-year highs.

“This is the kind of volatility we have never seen. I’m afraid this will get worse and worse,” Reich’s Nelson said.

DEFAULT SKITTISHNESS

The surge in T-bill rates stemmed partly from major money market fund operators, including Fidelity, JPMorgan, BlackRock and PIMCO, dumping their holdings of T-bill issues that mature in the next four weeks because they were seen most vulnerable if the government did not raise the debt ceiling in time.

Reich’s Nelson took more drastic action.

He said he cleared his funds of all T-bills that mature between now and the end of the year and did not jump back to buy them, even after President Obama signed the debt ceiling deal into law before midnight.

In the meantime, default anxiety caused retail investors to rush to redeem their money fund shares.

Money funds posted their biggest weekly outflows in nearly a year, as assets fell $44.77 billion to $2.606 trillion in the week ended October 15, according to iMoneynet’s Money Fund Report.

The asset drop, while large, was still much less than the $103.21 billion plunge in the week ended August 2, 2011 during the first debt ceiling showdown between the White House and top Republican lawmakers.

COST OF A SHORT-TERM DEAL

A pick-up in interest costs, if it persists, would be a setback for the government as its deficit has been shrinking.

“There are costs associated with going through this each time, costs embedded into Treasuries securities, costs the Treasury has to incur in higher risk premiums at auction,” said Rob Toomey, associate general counsel at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), on a call with reporters on Wednesday.

Bidding at last week’s one-month T-bill sale was the weakest since March 2009. Demand at this week’s bill auctions improved on hopes of a debt agreement, but interest rates remained higher than where they were almost three weeks ago.

Fitch Ratings on Tuesday warned it might strip the United States of its top AAA-rating due to the debt ceiling fight.

“This highlights the risk in the United States. It’s not good for investors. If investors want to diversify from the U.S., this gives them a reason to,” said Brian Edmonds, head of rates trading at Cantor Fitzgerald in New York.

Skittishness in owning T-bills hurt Wall Street firms too. The 21 primary dealers, those top-tier investment banks that do business directly with the U.S. Federal Reserve, are required to buy the debt issued by the government at auctions.

“There are too much uncertainties. That’s dangerous especially if you are a primary dealer when you have to underwrite Treasury debt,” said Edmonds.

Debt ceiling 101: What you need to know

By Alexandra Thomas

If you’ve kept up with U.S. news at all lately, you might’ve heard this: If Congress and the White House cannot reach a deal on the debt ceiling crisis by October 17, the U.S. government won’t have enough money to pay its bills. That sounds pretty scary — especially if you’re not quite sure what it all means.

So what exactly is the debt ceiling, anyway? And how can it affect you?

The debt ceiling crisis is not the same as the partial government shutdown

Yes, it’s confusing to other people as well. Two very complicated crises are happening in Washington simultaneously, and both are happening because lawmakers cannot come to an agreement.

The government shut down because lawmakers couldn’t agree on a deal to fund the government before the start of the new fiscal year. The debt ceiling refers to debt outstanding — bills for which the government has already approved the spending and has already committed to paying.

The shutdown only slightly changes the government’s payment schedule. When the government is closed, the number of daily payments the Department of the Treasury needs to make decreases, since many things are closed. But even during the shutdown, the U.S. government is still required to make a lot of other payments, including Social Security, Medicare and interest on the debt. And these are big payments that may impact the livelihood of millions of Americans.

The Treasury Department says if the limit (the debt ceiling) isn’t raised, the government could default on the bills it owes, which could then lead to a financial crisis similar to the events of 2008.

What is the debt ceiling?

The debt ceiling is the borrowing limit that Congress has set for itself as a way to control government spending. The difference between the amount of money the U.S. government takes in and the amount of money it spends each year is called the deficit. The ongoing deficit then adds up to the overall debt.

Congress usually approves more spending than it collects in tax revenue, so the Treasury has to borrow the rest of the money from other government accounts and by issuing IOUs, in order to pay those bills. Congress sets a cap on how much debt the government can have — called the debt ceiling. The debt ceiling is the maximum amount the Treasury can borrow, and right now that limit is set at about $16.699 trillion.

The U.S. government can borrow that amount, and no more, unless Congress votes to raise the debt ceiling.

In May, the government actually reached that limit, but over the past few months, the Treasury has been able to shuffle money around from various accounts to avoid taking on any more debt. That luxury is about to go away.

According to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, the government will soon run out of money, except for about $30 billion, and the Treasury will either need to increase revenue or take on more debt — or it won’t be able to pay certain bills.

How the government funds its spending

The government funds its spending in two ways: taxes and borrowing. The government borrows money by issuing Treasury bonds, or IOUs. When someone buys a Treasury bond, they’re basically lending the government money and racking up interest on the loan, which the government pays each month. On October 17, the government owes an interest payment of about $13 billion — the first payment the government won’t be able to make without raising the debt ceiling.

The cap on borrowing applies to debt owed to the public, anyone who buys Treasury bonds and debt owed to federal government trust funds — such as those set up for Social Security and Medicare.

After October 17, the government will only be bringing in enough money to pay about 68% of its bills, according to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center. According to the center’s analysis, beginning on October 18, the Treasury will be about $106 billion short of making the $328 billion in payments that are already scheduled through November 15. Normally, when the debts are due, the government just issues new debts (by selling bonds), however if the government doesn’t have the full amounts it owes, certain payments will be delayed.

Who would be impacted if the government goes into default?

The government typically spends, or owes, about $10 billion per day for various things. And if the government can’t make those payments, the first people to be affected will be people who get pay or benefits from the government. That includes members of the military and people who receive benefits such as Social Security and Medicare. Here’s a breakdown of the dates when the government is supposed to pay some of its biggest bills:

Ideally, the government would be able to prioritize which bills it pays first, but that’s not a realistic possibility because of how the Treasury payment system works. The Treasury issues about 100 million monthly payments through a computer system, which pays the bills automatically as they come due, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. So, no one knows which checks will be issued at exactly what time. And if it begins making payments it doesn’t have the money for, checks will start bouncing. It’s just unclear at this point which ones would bounce.

So the government could pay some bills in full and delay others, or, it could delay all bills until it has enough money to pay each day’s bills in full. The problem with delaying them all is that, with each day that goes by, the total amount the government owes will continue to increase drastically.

Some federal contractors may accept an IOU, with higher interest, but people who depend on Social Security checks on a regular basis probably won’t want an IOU from the government that’s worth nothing right now. Plus, if the government misses a payment to bondholders, that could impact the stability of the U.S. bond market and confidence in the U.S. dollar.

If some payments are delayed, people could get payments, like Social Security checks, a few weeks late.

So what’s next?

Economists say missing the debt ceiling deadline won’t trigger an immediate recession. However, the longer Congress waits, the worse the problem could get.

According to Patrick O’Keefe, director of economic research at accounting firm Cohn Reznick, “Merely missing the debt ceiling deadline will not trigger a recession, but the risks will rise rapidly with each week after the deadline passes.”

Congress could agree on a short-term increase of the debt ceiling to allow the government to pay its bills, but a longer-term agreement must be reached eventually.

BPC’s Debt Limit Projection: Key Takeaways

On September 10, the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) released its comprehensive debt limit analysis for fall 2013. On May 19 of this year, the debt limit was reinstated at a new, higher level, after having been suspended since February. Upon its reinstatement, the U.S. found itself up against the debt limit with the Treasury Department continuing to operate through the limited borrowing authority provided by extraordinary measures.

In July, BPC had projected that the X Date – the point at which extraordinary measures and cash on hand are exhausted and Treasury can no longer meet all federal financial obligations in full and on time – would be reached between mid-October and mid-November. With updated government financial data and a more extensive analysis of daily transactions that will occur in September, October, and November, BPC has narrowed that projected window to October 18 – November 5. This range will be regularly updated in the coming weeks, as warranted by the data.

We have already hit the debt limit. The U.S. officially reached its statutory borrowing limit of about $16.699 trillion on May 19, 2013. (Technically, Treasury has stayed $25 million below the actual limit of $16,699,421,000,000 since that time). To raise additional funds for paying the nation’s obligations beyond that date, the Treasury Secretary has been using some of the approximately $303 billion in available extraordinary measures. As of August 31, roughly $108 billion of these measures remained. Unless the debt limit is increased, eventually there will come a point when Treasury does not have enough cash to pay all bills in full and on time, and the government will be forced to default on some of its obligations. BPC refers to this date as the “X Date.”

BPC now projects that the “X Date” will occur between October 18 and November 5. This represents a range, which can be thought of as a confidence interval. A more precise estimate is not yet appropriate due to the volatility of revenue and the nature of the government’s financial obligations leading up to and during this period. Furthermore, even BPC’s estimated range for the X Date is a projection, which is subject to some uncertainty. The most significant sources of uncertainty are the quarterly tax payments due in mid-September, which tend to be volatile, along with general economic conditions. While federal government revenue has been strong compared to the previous fiscal year – coinciding with greater employment, increased corporate earnings, and slow-but-steady economic growth – there is no guarantee that these trends will continue.

How will Treasury make payments on or after the X Date? We don’t know. This would be an unprecedented situation. If the X Date arrived on October 18 (the start of BPC’s X-Date window), we project that Treasury would be $106 billion short of making $328 billion in scheduled payments through November 15, meaning that 32 percent of those obligations would go unpaid.

In one scenario, Treasury might prioritize some payments over others; our full report provides an illustrative example. Treasury, however, may not find that it has the legal authority or the technical capability to do this (because such prioritization could require extensive reprogramming of computer systems, which may not be possible in a short timeframe). An alternative approach would be for Treasury to wait until enough revenue is collected to make an entire day’s worth of payments at a time, meaning that all payments would be made in turn, but everyone anticipating funds from the government would see delays. While payment delays would be short in the beginning (one or two days), they would quickly cascade. If Treasury were to delay payments in this manner, and the X Date were reached on October 18, for example, Social Security payments due on November 1 would not be received by beneficiaries until November 13.

In any scenario, we assume that Treasury would do whatever it could to ensure that interest on the debt is paid in full and on time.

Substantial debt is scheduled to roll over after the X Date. From October 18 through November 15, over $370 billion in debt is expected to mature. Normally, this would be rolled over in a standard procedure by issuing new debt. Uncertainty surrounding the debt limit, however, could force Treasury to pay higher interest rates on this newly issued debt. Also, while very unlikely, there is a possibility that in a post-X Date environment, Treasury may not have sufficient buyers to complete its standard auction operation.

How much would the debt limit need to be increased in order to get through next year? BPC has projected the magnitude of the debt limit increase necessary to enable Treasury to meet all obligations through calendar year 2014. An increase of approximately $1.1 trillion would be required. There is a great amount of uncertainty in this estimate, however, given the amount of time that is covered.

Expect more updates. BPC will continue to update and refine our X-Date estimates as new information becomes available. To learn more, view our full report.

Dollar Slips as Fed Worries Continue

Treasury Yields Fall as Investors Focus on Effects of Government Shutdown

By

MICHELE MAATOUK

Expectations that the Federal Reserve will have to keep its easy-money policies in place for longer following the partial U.S. government shutdown pushed the dollar close to its lowest point of the year against the euro and U.S. Treasury debt prices to their highest point since July.

Yields on the 10-year Treasury note, which move inversely to prices, touched 2.538%, the lowest level since July 24, according to CQG. The dollar continued its slide against major rivals, including the euro, the yen and the pound. The euro recently bought $1.3686 from $1.3676 late Thursday, while the pound fetched $1.6186 from $1.6165. The greenback traded at ¥97.71 from ¥97.93.

The drop in the dollar and the rise in Treasury debt prices were set in train earlier this week after lawmakers reached a temporary solution to raise the so-called debt ceiling, showing that investors doubt the Fed can start to reel in its stimulus measures—a process dubbed tapering—for as long as economic performance and data is compromised by the now-ended shutdown, and as long as the risk of repeat shutdowns lingers.

“As policy remains uber accommodative, the dollar has adjusted downwards,” said Scott Jamieson, head of multi-asset investing at Kames Capital in London, with $24 billion under management.

“While we have been inclined to see tapering next year, the market is only now coming to appreciate this,” said analysts at Brown Brothers Harriman. “After the September disappointment, surveys suggest that a majority shifted their expectations to December. Now in light of the fiscal drag and new uncertainty, the mid-January and mid-February limits on spending and debt issuance will loom large at the December Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and likely reduces the possibility of tapering then. The focus is likely to shift to the March 2014 FOMC meeting for the first tapering,” they said.

U.S. stocks traded mostly higher. The S&P 500 added 0.4% to 1740, pushing further into record territory. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 0.8% to 3893. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged behind, dropping 0.2% to 15370.

Now that Congress has temporarily approved a bill to raise the debt ceiling, attention is likely to shift back to earnings and fundamentals. And as investors reassess their expectations for any withdrawal of stimulus from the Fed, all eyes will be on the economic data that was delayed by the partial government shutdown. The next focus will beSeptember’s nonfarm payrolls report, which is due on Oct. 22.

Only 12 percent of Americans now approve of the job Congress is doing. Despite that, incumbents are overwhelmingly re-elected. Eighty-six percent of them survived the 2010 elections for the House of Representatives. That’s not much of a surprise when you consider that 80 percent of House districts are safe for one of the two major parties and 62 percent of incumbents face no primary challenge at all. No wonder many Americans feel those who “represent” them in Washington don’t really represent them at all. A new organization, the Campaign for Primary Accountability, is trying to level the playing field and to restore real representation by making incumbents more accountable to citizens. Its efforts have won praise across the political spectrum and condemnation from fans of the status quo. But it is not alone. Mark Meckler, a founder of the Tea Party Patriots, is launching a new effort to change American elections for the better. Please join us to hear these leaders talk about their continuing struggle to take back America.

Senator Cruz says Abolish the IRS tea party rally, June 19, 2013

Rand Paul speaks at IRS Rally, June 19, 2013

Michele Bachmann: I Was An IRS Insurgent Because Understanding The Enemy Is Best Way To Defeat Them

Congressman Steve King –Tea Party Patriots “Audit the IRS” Rally

Niger Innis to Tea Partiers: “You are the Modern Civil Rights Movement!”

Niger Innis, Chief Strategist for TheTeaParty.net, gave a powerful speech at the Audit the IRS rally on June 19th in which he stated that the Tea Party movement is the modern day Civil Rights movement.

Glenn Beck: Audit IRS Rally FULL Speech (37 Min.)

Glenn Beck’s FULL speech at the Tea Party’s Audit The IRS Rally at the U.S. Capitol on June 19th, 2013.

IFL President Andrew Langer Speaks At The Tea Party Patriots Audit the IRS Rally

On June 19, 2013, Institute for Liberty President Andrew Langer gave the closing remarks at the #AuditTheIRS rally held at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. The event was organized by the Tea Party Patriots. Mr. Langer’s remarks centered on his view that the suppression of opposition is de facto tyranny, something anathema to a thriving republic.

R – Tea Party Patriots – #1- Eva Mazella

A – Tea Party Patriots – #2 Jim Murphy, 6-19-13

A- Tea Party Patriots # 3 – Ann – 6-19-13

6-19-13 – ‘Audit the IRS’ Rally – #4 – Laurie, Arlington – 6-19-13

AUDIT THE IRS RALLY!

Audit the IRS News Conference at the Capitol June 19, 2013

The Five Takes On ‘Audit The IRS’ Rally: Tea Party Movement Is ‘Roaring Back To Life’

Glenn Beck – IRS targeted conservatives

Lou Dobbs Rips ‘Nixonian’ Obama For Lying ‘Through His Teeth’ About IRS ‘President Who Has Lost His

Paul Steiger: The ProPublica Story

ProPublica founder and CEO, Paul Steiger, on the creation of this foundation-funded investigative newsroom, the challenges they faced and their plans for the future. ProPublica is the first online-only organization to win a Pulitzer Prize.

IRS Targets Tea Party Groups During 2012 Election

Progressive Group: IRS Gave Us Conservative Groups’ Confidential Docs

The progressive-leaning investigative journalism group ProPublica says the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office that targeted and harassed conservative tax-exempt groups during the 2012 election cycle gave the progressive group nine confidential applications of conservative groups whose tax-exempt status was pending.

The commendable admission lends further evidence to the lengths the IRS went during an election cycle to silence tea party and limited government voices.

ProPublica says the documents the IRS gave them were “not supposed to be made public”:

The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year… In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made sixof those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)

The group says that “no unapproved applications from liberal groups were sent to ProPublica.”

According to Media Research Center Vice President for Business and Culture Dan Gainor, ProPublica’s financial backers include top progressive donors:

ProPublica, which recently won its second Pulitzer Prize, initially was given millions of dollars from the Sandler Foundation to “strengthen the progressive infrastructure”–“progressive” being the code word for very liberal. In 2010, it also received a two-year contribution of $125,000 each year from the Open Society Foundations. In case you wonder where that money comes from, the OSF website is http://www.soros.org. It is a network of more than 30 international foundations, mostly funded by Soros, who has contributed more than $8 billion to those efforts.

On Friday, the House Ways and Means Committee is scheduled to hold a formal hearing on the IRS conservative targeting scandal. IRS Commissioner Steve Miller and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George are slated to testify.

IRS Also Leaked Info About Conservative Groups

Targeting scandal widens

By Evann Gastaldo, Newser Staff

More trouble for the IRS: The same office that singled out conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status also leaked confidential information about conservative groups last year, ProPublica reports. How does ProPublica know? Well, because the nine pending applications were leaked to ProPublica in the first place. The investigative site had asked to see the applications for 67 nonprofits and the IRS’ Cincinnati office sent over 31, nine of which had not been approved yet, meaning they were supposed to be confidential.

ProPublica was interested in the applications because it was revealing how social-welfare nonprofits, which don’t have to identify their donors and can spend money on elections as long as social welfare is their primary goal, misled the IRS when applying for tax-exempt status. Among the applications released to ProPublica: Karl Rove’s Crossroads group, which had promised to spend only “limited” money on 2012 elections and ended up spending more than $70 million. Also included were five other groups that all claimed they would not spend any money to sway the elections and spent more than $5 million. ProPublica reported on all six (here and here). Interestingly, the New York Times reported today that Crossroads and other larger groups were not subjected to the same intense scrutiny the IRS applied to small Tea Party groups; click for more on that.

Coming into this, when I talked to Herb and Marion Sandler, one of my concerns was precisely this question of independence and nonpartisanship… My history has been doing ‘down the middle’ reporting. And so when I talked to Herb and Marion I said ‘are you comfortable with that?’ They said ‘absolutely’. I said ‘well suppose we did an expose of some of the left leaning organizations that you have supported or that are friendly to what you’ve supported in the past’. They said ‘no problem’. And when we set up our organizational structure, the board of directors, on which I sit and which Herb is the chairman, does not know in advance what we’re going to report on.[9]

ProPublica has attracted attention for the salaries it pays its top executives.[12][13] The head of ProPublica, Paul Steiger, was paid $571,687 in 2008, according to the company’s tax filings.[14] The managing editor, Stephen Engelberg, was paid $343,463.[15][16] The large salaries have been widely criticized by other journalists and even some in the non-profit world as excessive.[17][17][18] Steiger is the former managing editor at the Wall Street Journal. Engelberg is a former New York Times editor who co-wrote the non-fiction book Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, with Times reporter Judith Miller. He was recently elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Awards

In 2010, ProPublica jointly won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting (it was also awarded to another new organization for a different story), for “a story that chronicles the urgent life-and-death decisions made by one hospital’s exhausted doctors when they were cut off by the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina.”[19] It was written by ProPublica’s Sheri Fink and published in the New York Times Magazine[6] as well as on ProPublica.org.[7] This was the first Pulitzer awarded to an online news source.[4][5] That investigation also won a National Magazine Award for reporting.

In 2011, ProPublica won its second Pulitzer Prize.[20] Reporters Jesse Eisinger and Jake Bernstein won the Pulitzer for National Reporting for their series, The Wall Street Money Machine. This was the first time a Pulitzer was awarded to a group of stories not published in print.

ProPublica’s reporters have also received the Selden Ring, George Polk, National Magazine, Society of Professional Journalists, James Aronson, ABA Silver Gavel, Overseas Press Club, Online Journalism, Investigative Editors and Reporters, Society of News Design, Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and Dart Center awards (among others) for their work.

Criticism

Dave Kopel, a policy analyst for the libertarianCato Institute and a former columnist for the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News, criticized a ProPublica report on hydraulic fracturing as a “one-sided series of facts arrayed to support a point of view”. He argued that a common theme in ProPublica’s work is that “the government is not doing a good enough job in controlling things, particularly things involving big business”.[24] ProPublica later responded to his article, countering those claims and saying quote, “using carefully culled quotations and selected statistics, Kopel asserts ‘indisputably false facts’ in ProPublica’s reporting.” [25]

After fallout from the IRS publicly admitting to targeting conservative tax exempt groups for added scrutiny, ProPublica broke the news that it had requested and received confidential pending applications for groups requesting tax exempt status.

Claim: Obama Campaign Co-Chair Attacked Romney with Leaked IRS Docs

One of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign co-chairmen used a leaked document from the IRS to attack GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney during the 2012 election, according to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).

NOM, a pro-traditional marriage organization, claims the IRS leaked their 2008 confidential financial documents to the rival Human Rights Campaign. Those NOM documents were published on the Huffington Post on March 30, 2012. At that time, Joe Solmonese, a left-wing activist and Huffington Post contributor, was the president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Solmonese was also a 2012 Obama campaign co-chairman.

Both the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein and HRC described the leak as coming from a “whistleblower.” The Huffington Post used the document to write a story questioning former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s support for traditional marriage. The document showed Romney donated $10,000 to NOM. HRC went a step further than the Huffington Post in its criticism of Romney and accused him of using “racially divisive tactics” in a press release.

Solmonese, then still the HRC’s president, said in the release he felt Romney’s “funding of a hate-filled campaign designed to drive a wedge between Americans is beyond despicable.”

“Not only has Romney signed NOM’s radical marriage pledge, now we know he’s one of the donors that NOM has been so desperate to keep secret all these years,” Solmonese added.

Solmonese resigned his position at HRC the next day and took up a position as an Obama campaign co-chair. He had announced the then-pending resignation from HRC the previous autumn.

In early April 2012, NOM published documents which it said showed this leaked confidential information did not come from a “whistleblower” but “came directly from the Internal Revenue Service and was provided to NOM’s political opponents, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC).”

NOM discovered that when HRC published its confidential financial documents, it failed to conceal the source of the documents. “After software removed the layers obscuring the document, it is shown that the document came from the Internal Revenue Service,” NOM asserted in its April 2012 release.

“The top of each page says, ‘THIS IS A COPY OF A LIVE RETURN FROM SMIPS. OFFICIAL USE ONLY,’” the statement continues. “On each page of the return is stamped a document ID of ‘100560209.’ Only the IRS would have the Form 990 with ‘Official Use’ information.”

NOM president Brian Brown argued in that April 2012 release that the leak was made to benefit President Obama’s re-election campaign against Romney, his GOP challenger. “The American people are entitled to know how a confidential tax return containing private donor information filed exclusively with the Internal Revenue Service has been given to our political opponents whose leader also happens to be co-chairing President Obama’s reelection committee,” Brown said.

“It is shocking that a political ally of President Obama’s would come to possess and then publicly release a confidential tax return that came directly from the Internal Revenue Service,” he declared. “We demand to know who is responsible for this criminal act and what the Administration is going to do to get to the bottom of it.”

The bar chart comes directly from the Monthly Treasury Statement published by the U. S. Treasury Department. <<< Click on the chart for more info.
The “Debt Total” bar chart is generated from the Treasury Department’s “Debt Report” found on the Treasury Direct web site. It has links to search the debt for any given date range, and access to debt interest information. It is a direct source to government provided budget information.

— “Deficit” vs. “Debt”—Suppose you spend more money this month than your income. This situation is called a “budget deficit”. So you borrow (ie; use your credit card). The amount you borrowed (and now owe) is called your debt. You have to pay interest on your debt. If next month you spend more than your income, another deficit, you must borrow some more, and you’ll still have to pay the interest on your debt (now larger). If you have a deficit every month, you keep borrowing and your debt grows. Soon the interest payment on your loan is bigger than any other item in your budget. Eventually, all you can do is pay the interest payment, and you don’t have any money left over for anything else. This situation is known as bankruptcy.

“Reducing the deficit” is a meaningless soundbite. If the DEFICIT is any amount more than ZERO, we have to borrow more and the DEBT grows.

Each year since 1969, Congress has spent more money than its income. The Treasury Department has to borrow money to meet Congress’s appropriations. Here is a direct link to the Congressional Budget Office web site’s deficit analysis. We have to pay interest* on that huge, growing debt; and it cuts into our budget big time.

DemocracyNow.org – Former House majority leader Dick Armey attempted a coup within his own Tea Party-linked nonprofit FreedomWorks earlier this year. When that failed, he took an $8 million payout from a millionaire Republican donor to leave. The incident highlighted what is believed to be growing turmoil inside the Tea Party movement after it rose to prominence ahead of the 2010 election. We’re joined by Politico reporter Ken Vogel. “[Armey] did in fact take a hit when he decided to go all in with FreedomWorks and refashion himself as the Tea Party leader,” Vogel says. “There has always been this tug of war in the Tea Party between national groups that have deep-pocketed contributors and benefactors and the actual grassroots.”

“…Dick Armey left the deep-pocketed tea party group he helped build over a clash with a top lieutenant who Armey and others in the organization believed was using the group’s resources to pad his pockets, POLITICO has learned.

Armey received an $8 million buyout to step down as chairman of FreedomWorks at the end of last month, but the dispute between him and the group’s president, Matt Kibbe, is still straining the organization.

And the turmoil could have far-reaching implications, since FreedomWorks has been among the leading Washington, D.C., groups pressuring Republicans to take a more conservative tact on the fiscal cliff negotiations and other fiscal matters.

The tensions at FreedomWorks, brewing for months, boiled over this summer when Armey balked at a deal that Kibbe struck with HarperCollins to write a book called “Hostile Takeover: Resisting Centralized Government’s Stranglehold on America,” which was released in June.

Armey was concerned that Kibbe structured the deal to personally profit from the book despite relying on FreedomWorks staff and resources to research, help write and promote it — an arrangement he and others at the group believed could jeopardize its tax-exempt status. (In 2010, Kibbe and Armey co-authored a book through HarperCollins, “Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto,” that was written with significant help from FreedomWorks staff and all proceeds had gone to the organization.)

So Armey declined to sign a memorandum presented to him in his capacity as a member of the board of trustees stating that the book was written without significant FreedomWorks resources and clearing the way for Kibbe to personally own the rights to the book and any royalties from it, multiple sources familiar with the arrangement told POLITICO.

Asked about his refusal to sign the memorandum, Armey, a former House Republican leader, said, “What bothered me most about that was that he was asking me to lie, and it was a lie that I thought brought the organization in harm’s way.”

After Armey’s concerns came to the attention of the organization’s board at a late August meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Kibbe and the group’s executive vice president, Adam Brandon, were placed on administrative leave in early September and had their cell phones taken away.

Brandon said the board was made aware of the book project months earlier, and Kibbe maintains that the leave didn’t stem from questions about the book deal.

Rather, he said “there was a dispute” with Armey over “competing visions for what FreedomWorks should become and ultimately, the board decided that we fit the vision of the organization.” …”

As the 2012 election shifts into high gear and the Republican party continues to develop its official platform, the voice of the right and center-right grassroots activists must be included.
FreedomWorks has created the “My 2012 GOP Platform” poll that gauges such support using a unique “run-off” matchup model. It is designed to elicit deeper preferences from voters and make it much more difficult for well-organized campaigns to “game” the system. The results below are for the last 30 days and reflect the percentage of times an issue was preferred in a head-to-head “run-off” against other issues. We also suspect they more accurately reflect the true pulse of the this community than those cited by the GOP establishment or the mainstream media.http://results.my2012platform.com/

GOP Platform Supports Voter ID Laws

GOP Platform: Monetary Policy

GOP Platform Debate: Foreign Aid

Mitt Romney Rejects the Republican Party Platform

Full Show 8/21/12: FDR Calls Out Romney & Ryan

RNC’s Platform Cmte. Preps for Upcoming Convention

“…The Republican National Convention (RNC) Platform Committee met Monday and Tuesday to decide the policy issues that will be addressed during the GOP’s National Convention.

The committee drafted and recommended a proposed national platform to the RNC to be voted on by all of the RNC delegates on the first day of the convention, Monday August 27th.

The Republican National Convention (RNC) adopts a new national platform every four years, which is an official statement of the Republican Party’s position on a variety of issues.

Sections on the Economy; Jobs and Debt; and Energy, Agriculture and the Environment were amended and approved by the committee on Monday. On Tuesday, delegates amended and approved the Foreign Policy and Defense, Government Reform, Restoring Constitutional Government and Healthcare, Education and Crime subcommittees’ reports.

The Platform Committee is responsible for drafting and recommending a proposed national platform to the RNC for approval by its delegates.

The meetings were chaired by Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee served as Co-Chairmen. …”

Tea party influences GOP platform talks in Tampa

TAMPA — When Republicans nominated John McCain for president in 2008, conservative groups associated with the tea party had yet to form.

Four years later, these groups say they are practically writing the party platform ahead of the Republican National Convention here next week.

“We’re extremely happy that the tea party can have this type of influence,” said Ryan Hecker, a legal adviser for FreedomWorks, the conservative advocacy group founded by Dick Armey. “We’ve definitely taken over the Republican Party.”

More than 100 delegates met Monday at the Marriott Waterside to draft the Republican platform in a sneak peek of the Aug. 27-30 convention. The platform is a 50-page document that provides policy statements that will guide Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign from here on out.

Weeks ago, FreedomWorks had 30 ideas posted on its website so members could log on and vote for the ones they wanted Republicans to include in the platform. Hecker said that after 1.2 million votes, 12 ideas were selected.

The ideas include repealing Obamacare, scrapping the tax code and replacing it with a flat tax, reining in federal regulation while eliminating government jobs and auditing the Federal Reserve. He said Republicans were lobbied by his group to include these ideas.

Although the platform hasn’t been released, Hecker said that he has seen much of the draft and that 10 of the 12 ideas have been included nearly word-for-word from how they were written by FreedomWorks. Parts of the remaining two are in there, as well, he said.

“Everyone is expecting Romney to move to the center,” said Debbie Wilson, an Apollo Beach resident who is a member of Tampa 912 and a state coordinator for FreedomWorks. “But I’m pleased to see that so far, the platform is very much to the right.”

GOP platforms since at least 1996 have been conservative in nature, said Al Cardenas, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, a volunteer post.

By now, about 80 percent of the work on the platform is done. This week will be a matter of tweaking language here and there, inserting or deleting clauses. The 112 delegates voting on the platform will approve a draft tonight that will be submitted for a vote on Monday by the full convention.

But Cardenas said he was impressed so far with how well the platform is getting done, calling it unusually well-written with little disagreement.

“I’m delighted; it’s one of the best drafts I’ve seen,” Cardenas said.

Monday’s discussion about the platform revealed an interesting quirk about the tea party. Although members of their groups say they hail from the working class, many support policies that could hurt them.

Take the one tax cut that isn’t guaranteed in a Romney presidency: the mortgage interest deduction. It makes ownership affordable to millions of middle-class Americans. A motion was made Monday to include its protection in the platform.

“This is the last vestige of why people want to buy a home,” said April Newland, a Virgin Islands delegate and a Realtor. “It sends a message not just to Realtors, but also to homeowners. It should be included because it would be so widespread.”

But it was defeated after pushback from delegates like Kevin Erickson, a pastor from Minnesota who calls himself a “Ron Paul Republican,” after the maverick Texas congressman.

Including the protection of the mortgage deduction would ruin tax-reform efforts, Erickson said.

This year’s platform was the result of greater participation among voters than ever, said one of the platform committee’s co-chairs. U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said the GOP website got 30,000 votes on various policies to be included.

Asked if the tea party played any special role, Blackburn said only that people in general had better access to party officials as they wrote the platform during the past two months.

“We’ve heard from thousands of people and we’ve had meetings with groups all across the country,” she said. “I don’t think any one group has had a special say. Everybody has had special access, through snail mail and social media like Facebook and Twitter.”

Platform chairman Bob McDonnell, the governor of Virginia, said the tea party didn’t have an exaggerated influence on the rightward tilt.

“We’re a conservative party,” he said.

But many of the delegates credited the tea party with setting the tone of the platform.

“They started the main conversation that we’re having now about the economy and the deficit,” said Cam Ward, an Alabama state senator who said tea party groups are very powerful in his district. “It’s a good debate, and I’m glad they’ve had the impact that they’ve had.” …”

“…The 110-member platform panel, meeting today in Tampa, Fla., passed a so-called Human Life Amendment that calls for a ban on abortion, without mention of the more common exceptions for victims of rape or incest.

“Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed,” said platform language obtained by CNN. “We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”

It is similar to language included in the GOP platform in both 2004 and 2008 but it has become even more politically loaded since Akin, a US House member from Missouri, was criticized for the answer he gave when asked if abortion were legitimate in cases of rape.

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down,” Akin said during a television interview aired on Sunday.

The differentiation between forms of rape prompted a swift rebuke not just from his Democratic opponent, Senator Claire McCaskill, but presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan. Romney initially urged Akin to spend 24 hours reconsidering his continued candidacy.

In a statement today, Romney said he now agreed with former Missouri Senators John Ashcroft, Kit Bond, John Danforth, and Jim Talent that Akin should quit the race.

“As I said [Monday], Todd Akin’s comments were offensive and wrong and he should very seriously consider what course would be in the best interest of our country. Today, his fellow Missourians urged him to step aside, and I think he should accept their counsel and exit the Senate race,” Romney said.

Brown was among the first Republicans to call for Akin to drop out of the race, doing so in a statement on Monday morning.

Brown supports abortion rights, while Romney and Ryan oppose them. Romney would make an exception for rape and incest, but Ryan would do so only when the health of a mother would be jeopardized by a continued pregnancy.

The reelection committee for Obama, an abortion rights supporter, pounced on the platform vote.

“Several Romney supporters and advisers were present and stood silently while this vote took place. This should come as no surprise, as Mitt Romney supported this exact language in the 2004 and 2008 Republican platforms and Paul Ryan fought to ban abortion even in cases of rape,” Obama spokeswoman Lis Smith said in a statement.

“Women across this country should take note of the Republican Party’s position, and not trust any of the false promises made by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan on the campaign trail,” Smith added.

AP sources: GOP platform draft at odds with Romney

“…Republican Party leaders decided to include that position during a party meeting Tuesday, two GOP officials confirmed to The Associated Press. The language is the same as it’s been since 1984, and the platform is set to be officially adopted Monday. But this year, it comes as GOP officials are calling on Missouri Rep. Todd Akin to quit his Senate bid after he made inflammatory comments about rape. Akin, asked in a local TV interview aired Sunday if he opposes abortion in cases of rape, said a woman’s body is able to prevent pregnancy in what he called “a legitimate rape.”

In a Sunday statement condemning Akin’s remarks, Romney said his administration would not oppose abortion in cases of rape. That puts him at odds with his party’s official line.

Romney is set to be nominated for president at the Republican National Convention that kicks off Aug. 27.

“The details of some of these things, like an exception for rape or life of the mother, these are not uncommon differences that candidates have and don’t share some of the detail on those exceptions,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said Tuesday on MSNBC. “But as far as our platform is concerned, I mean, this is the platform of the Republican Party. It is not the platform of Mitt Romney.”

The party’s platform says members of the GOP “assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution.”

Romney’s position on the question is also at odds with his running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, who opposes abortion except in instances where the life of the mother is at risk. That’s closer in line with the Republican Party’s official position.

A Ryan aide downplayed the difference. “He knows he is joining the Romney ticket and the Romney administration will reflect the views of the nominee,” Ryan spokesman Michael Steel told reporters traveling with Romney’s no. 2 from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia.

Ryan has voted for legislation that has included exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother, another spokesman said.

The decision might have passed with little notice if not for Akin, whose weekend comments drew intense criticism and quick calls for him to step aside.

“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Akin said when asked about abortion in cases of rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Romney did not call for Akin to leave the race until about two hours before a state-imposed deadline for him to drop out without going to court. Akin was still in the race at 6 p.m. EDT Tuesday, and now has until Sept. 25 to seek a court order to take his name off the ballot. After that date, there is no way for Akin to leave the race.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who RNC’s Platform Committee, called it a “document that transcends time.”

“Current events regarding who said what at any given time don’t affect this document,” McDonnell said.

“There is really no essential difference between the unlimited power of the democratic state and the unlimited power of the autocrat.”

Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, pages 64-65

The Welfare State is merely a method for transforming the market economy step by step into socialism.”

Ludwig von Mises, Planning for Freedom, page 219

“Upon the supposition, that the bank is constitutionally created, this is the only question; and this question seems answered, as soon as it is stated. If the states may tax the bank, to what extent shall they tax it, and where shall they stop?An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation. A question of constitutional power can hardly be made to depend on a question of more or less. If the states may tax, they have no limit but their discretion; and the bank, therefore, must depend on the discretion of the state governments for its existence. This consequence is inevitable. The object in laying this tax, may have been revenue to the state. In the next case, the object may be to expel the bank from the state; but how is this object to be ascertained, or who is to judge of the motives of legislative acts?”

Full Text of Supreme Court Decision

Chief Justice John Roberts Comes Out of The Progressive Closet

A progressive Republican President George W. Bush appointed another progressive Republican to be Chief Justice– John Roberts.

The result of this decision is the Affordable Care Act is declared Constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States!

A progressive Democratic President Barack Obama lead the Democratic Party in passing the Affordable Care Act better known as Obamacare. The Constitutional authority cited for the passage of the bill was the commerce clause, which gives Congress the power to regulate commerce. Both Obama and the Democratic Party deliberately did not use their taxing powers under the Constitution as their authority for passing the bill.

Obama Goes Toe-To-Toe With Stephanopoulos On “Tax Increases”

The reason for not using the Congress’ taxing authority was Obamacare would never had passed for it would have been viewed as one of the biggest increases in taxes in the history of the United States. Just remember candidate Obama’s promise, now a big lie, to never increase the taxes of Americans earning less than $250,000:

President Obama’s Pledge Never to Raise Taxes on Anyone Making Less Than $250,000 a Year

Both the majority and dissenting decisions clearly state that the commerce clause cannot be used to justify Obamacare or more specifically the mandate that requires individuals to purchase health insurance. The mandate is clearly unconstitutional.

Chief Justice Roberts was joined by the four progressive or liberal justices in declaring Obamacare Constitutional because it was a tax and Congress has the power to tax under the Constitution.

Instead of simply declaring the act unconstitutional for exceeding their powers under the Commerce clause, the majority of the justices said correctly that the act is a tax, even though the bill was not written as a tax.

While it is clearly the function of the Supreme Court to review acts of Congress and decide whether an act is Constitutional or unconstitutional, it is decidedly not the function of the Supreme Court to legislate by in effect rewriting the act and giving it the correct justification.

The act should have been declared unconstitutional and sent back to Congress for them to rewrite the act and use their taxing powers as justification.

If this had been done, Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act would never had been passed–it would have been repealed.

The majority of the American people never asked for Obamacare.

Today at least 2 out of 3 Americans want the repeal of Obamacare.

Chief Justice Roberts should have joined the dissenting justices in a 5 to 4 decision to rule that Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional because Congress exceeded its authority or powers under the commerce clause.

This would have ended Obamacare, a bill that at least 2 out of 3 Americans do not want and cannot afford.

Instead, Chief Justice has come out of the closet and revealed that he is really a progressive Republican that talks conservative but acts progressive.

Shame on Justice Roberts and the justices that joined him for exceeding their own authority and the will of the American people.

While the majority of the American people consider themselves conservative, both the Democratic and Republican parties are controlled by progressives that want the government to intervene in the economy at home and other nations abroad.

Beware of progressives Republicans that talk conservative to get elected and once elected act like progressives.

Mitt Romney reacts to the health care ruling

Since both Obama and Romney have a record of flip flopping, I suggest American follow the advice of the late President Reagan.

Trust but verify

Not a Dime in Tax Increase for Those Earning Less than $250,000

Health Care: Mitt Romney flip-flops on Health Care

Romney: Mass. Health Law Differs From Obama’s

ObamaCare is RomneyCare 2.0

Remember, it was another Progressive Republican President, George H.W. Bush, who said, “Read my lips, no new taxes.”

George H. W. Bush

Trust but verify.

Obamacare is a tax and as such should have originated in the House of Representatives, the people’s house, and it did not.

The reason is simple, the bill that eventually become Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act, would have been one of the largest taxes increases in United States history and would have clearly broken Obama’s promise not to increase taxes on anyone making less than $250,00.

Hence Obama’s repeated assertion of the big lie that Obamacare orthe Affordable Care Act is not a tax.

Busted: Audio of Obama Lawyer Arguing Obamacare Is a Tax

Rush Limbaugh on fighting to defeat Obamacare

Coburn on how ACA “sovietizes” health care

The American people know a liar when they hear him.

The American people knew all along that Obamacare was a massive tax increase, especially on young.

They did not need a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court with a Harvard Law degree to point out the obvious.

Obamacare generates signficant uncertainty for businesses–the wealth, income and job creators of America.

Businesses do not know what the cost of their employee group health care insurance will be in future years.

Nor do businesses know what taxes they will paying in the future years.

This massive uncertainty as to the cost of doing business results in lower economic growth and reducing hiring of new employees.

The economic consequences of the passage of Obamacare have been unemployment rates exceeding 8 percent for 42 months and most likely the entire Obama administration.

As the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Marshall said in McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819, “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy.”

Chief Justice John Roberts is simply not in the same league as Chief Justice Marshall.

Roberts originally was going to vote with the dissenting justices and if he did, Obamacare would have been declared unconstitutional.

Inside Justice Roberts’ health care decision

This would have dramatically reduce business uncertainty.

Instead, he came out of the progressive closet and sided with the four progressive justices.

Obamacare is wrecking the economy, destroying jobs and killing the American dream.

Outrage Over Judicial Activism and Obamacare

The vast majority of the American people never wanted Obamacare.

Yet a small elite of progressive Harvard Law graduates are telling the American people that they must buy something that do not want and many cannot afford.

The time for action is now.

Obamacare is a massively huge tax increase and an assault on the consumer sovereignty of the American people

Rush Limbaugh on fighting to defeat Obamacare

March on Washington, D.C. on July 4, 2012!

Washington Tea Party!

The time is now for Americans all across this nation to have tea parties in protest of Obamacare and massive unbalance budgets that will add more than $5 trillion or $5,000 billion in the four-year of the Obama administration.

WHY DON’T YOU MIND MY OWN BUSINESS?

Repeal Obamacare!

Background Articles and Videos

3 Reasons to End Obamacare Before it Begins!

Mark Meckler on the Tea Party Movement

Judge Napolitano: “Individual Mandate Most Bizarre Tax in the History of the Country”

Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare – Conservative Reaction Absurd

Obama reacts to health care supreme court ruling. 6/28/12

Obama Tax Promises

Obama on single payer health insurance

Obama will cut deficit in half FEB 2009

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“…Because the High Court found that the penalty for not having coverage is a tax and not a fee or a banana, it ruled Congress has the constitutional authority to impose such a levy. In effect, the 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts concluded that Congress can tax you for failing to acquire insurance. Thus, the mandate as created by the ACA is constitutional.

But the Court rejected the White House’s main legal argument—that Congress has the authority under the Commerce Clause to require people to get insurance. It will be interesting to see how legal scholars read this in the coming weeks: Is the Court saying that tax policy is the only tool Congress has to enact certain social welfare programs? If so, it would put an already-stressed tax code under even greater pressure.

The ACA includes a number of tax provisions—only a few of which are related to insurance reform.

Among them:

The tax on those who don’t have health insurance. The key to the individual mandate, this provision would penalize those who do not have insurance starting in 2014. The penalty begins at $95 and phases up to a maximum of $695 or 2.5 percent of income by 2016.

Subsidies for buyers. These subsidies are aimed at helping low-income households purchase individual insurance through the health exchanges created by the law. The subsidies are effectively refundable tax credits managed by the Internal Revenue Service.

Small business tax credits. These subsidies, initially up to 35 percent of an employer’s premium contribution, are already in effect. The subsidy gradually phases out as the firm’s average wage and the number of its employees increase.

Medicare payroll tax. Starting in 2013, the ACA raises the Medicare Part A payroll tax by 0.9 percent for those making $200,000 or more (couples making $250,000).

Taxes on unearned income. The law also imposes a new 3.8 percent tax on investment income and other unearned income for wealthy households, also starting in 2013.

Taxing high-value employer-sponsored health plans. Technically imposed on insurers, the law sets an excise tax on individual coverage that exceeds $10,200 or family coverage of more than $27,500. The levy, effective beginning in 2018, is equal to 40 percent of the premiums that exceed these thresholds. Because it is indexed by the rate of the consumer price index (which rises more slowly than medical costs), the tax will gradually apply to less generous policies.

Other revenue raisers. The law includes a number of other minor taxes intended to help pay for the health coverage expansion. These include new penalties on Health Savings Accounts, limits on Flexible Savings Accounts, and an excise tax on indoor tanning salons.

The Court upheld all of these taxes with the rest of the law (except for a requirement that states expand their Medicaid coverage for the working poor).

The political fate of the ACA remains to be seen, of course. But the Supreme Court has at least settled the dispute over whether it is constitutional. …”

A Vast New Taxing Power

The Chief Justice’s ObamaCare ruling is far from the check on Congress of right-left myth.

“…The commentary on John Roberts’s solo walk into the Affordable Care Act wilderness is converging on a common theme: The Chief Justice is a genius. All of a sudden he is a chessmaster, a statesman, a Burkean minimalist, a battle-loser but war-winner, a Daniel Webster for our times.

Now that we’ve had more time to take in Chief Justice Roberts’s reasoning, we have a better summary: politician. In fact, his 5-4 ruling validating the constitutional arguments against purchase mandates and 5-4 ruling endorsing them as taxes is far more dangerous, and far more political, even than it first appeared last week.

This is a minority view. By right-left acclaim, at least among elites, the Chief Justice has engineered a Marbury v. Madison-like verdict that camouflages new limits on federal power as a reprieve for President Obama’s entitlement legacy and in a stroke enhanced the Supreme Court’s reputation—and his own. This purported “long game” appeals to conservatives who can console themselves with a moral victory, while the liberals who like to assail the Chief Justice as a radical foe of democracy can continue their tantrum.

It’s an elegant theory whose only flaw is that it is repudiated by Chief Justice Roberts’s own language and logic. His gambit substitutes one unconstitutional expansion of government power for another and rearranges the constitutional architecture of the U.S. political system.

His first error is the act of rewriting the plain text of a law, instead of practicing the disinterested interpretation that is the task of the judiciary, regardless of the partisan outcome. The second error is converting the health insurance mandate’s penalty into a tax. Ninety years of precedents have honed precise and widely divergent legal meanings for taxes and penalties for violating laws or regulations, and they are not interchangeable.

The Chief Justice did not simply change a label—as if Congress said something was a penalty when it was really a tax. Rather, these categories are defined by their purposes and effects, by how they operate in practice. Taxes are “exactions” whose main goal is raising revenue, while penalties punish individuals for breaking the law. The boundaries can blur—legitimate taxes may also have strong punitive aims—but scarcely so in this case. ObamaCare’s mandate was designed to regulate individual conduct to help achieve universal coverage. If it succeeds perfectly, it should collect $0.

Even if Democrats had passed the mandate tax as rewritten by the Chief Justice, and they did not, the Supreme Court until Thursday has never held that Congress can call anything it wants a tax. The taxing power like the Commerce Clause is broad, and the courts are generally deferential. But all powers the Constitution enumerates are also limited, and these limits—unique to each power—must be meaningful and enforceable by the legal system.

The Chief Justice’s compounding errors deprive the taxing power of any viable limiting principles. Article I, section 8 gives Congress an independent grant of power to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” Taxes must originate in the House, the political body designed to be most responsive to voters. There are also important additional safeguards on the type of exactions known as “direct taxes.”

Indirect taxes—”duties, imposts and excises”—are taxes on activities and products. They are passed on by a seller, triggered by a transaction and more or less optional: Consumers don’t have to buy taxed goods and services. Direct taxes, on the other hand, are those that the federal government is empowered to impose on individuals as citizens. They cannot be avoided because they are levied on the existence of people.

America has its origins in a rebellion against arbitrary and pernicious taxation and the Framers wanted to make it extremely difficult to impose or raise direct taxes. These can easily morph into plenary police powers, the regulation of private behavior and conduct that the Constitution vests in the states. For this reason, while the taxing power in addition to raising revenue can achieve regulatory results, those regulatory results must be constitutional themselves. …”

“…Chief Justice Roberts’s ruling is careless about these bedrock tax questions, and they are barely addressed by either the Court’s liberal or conservative wings. His ruling, with its multiple contradictions and inconsistencies, reads as if it were written by someone affronted by the government’s core constitutional claims but who wanted to uphold the law anyway to avoid political blowback and thus found a pretext for doing so in the taxing power.

If this understanding is correct, then Chief Justice Roberts behaved like a politician, which is more corrosive to the rule of law and the Court’s legitimacy than any abuse it would have taken from a ruling that President Obama disliked. The irony is that the Chief Justice’s cheering section is praising his political skills, not his reasoning. Judges are not supposed to invent political compromises.

“It is not our job,” the Chief Justice writes, “to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.” But the Court’s most important role is to protect liberty when the political branches exceed the Constitution’s bounds, not to bless their excesses in the interests of political or personal expediency or both. On one of the most consequential cases he will ever hear, Chief Justice Roberts failed this most basic responsibility.”

A version of this article appeared July 2, 2012, on page A10 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: A Vast New Taxing Power.

The Roberts Rules

The Chief Justice rewrites ObamaCare in order to save it.

“…The Chief Justice ruled that ObamaCare’s mandate violated the Commerce Clause, joined by the Court’s conservative bloc, but he also said that the mandate fell within Congress’s power to tax, joined by the Court’s liberal bloc. In practice this is a restraint on federal power without real restraint—and, worse, the Chief Justice had to rewrite the statute Congress passed in order to salvage it. The ruling will stand as one of the great what-might-have-beens of American constitutional law.

The novel question raised by ObamaCare’s command to buy health insurance or else pay a penalty—the first-ever purchase mandate in U.S. history—was whether Congress could create commerce in order to regulate it. In his 1-4-4 opinion, Chief Justice Roberts writes that construing the Commerce Clause as the Obama Administration argued “would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority. . . . The Framers gave Congress the power to regulate commerce, not to compel it, and for over 200 years both our decisions and Congress’s actions have reflected this understanding.”

Note that this rejection of federal compulsion, which the four conservatives supported albeit in dissent, is the same one that the liberal legal establishment spent years deriding as frivolous and beyond debate: Of course Washington has carte blanche to do whatever it wants to do. “That is not the country the Framers of our Constitution envisioned,” the Chief Justice writes, before going on to envision it himself by grounding the mandate in Congress’s power to “lay and collect Taxes.”

According to Chief Justice Roberts, the penalty is merely a tax on not owning health insurance, no different from “buying gasoline or earning income,” and it thus complies with the Constitution. This a large loophole. The result is that Washington has unlimited power to impose new purchase mandates and the courts will find them constitutional if Congress calls them taxes, or even if it calls them something else and judges call them taxes.

That was true with ObamaCare. The Pelosi Democrats explicitly structured the mandate as a regulatory “penalty.” Congress voted down a direct tax in 2009. Supreme Court precedents going back to the 1920s and 1930s define penalties and taxes as mutually exclusive and critically different.

Every lower court that heard the health-care cases rejected the taxing argument. Administration lawyers devoted only 21 lines of their reply brief to this argument and it barely came up at oral arguments. The Chief Justice in effect revised the statute in order to find it constitutional. …”

“…One telling note is that the dissent refers repeatedly to “Justice Ginsburg’s dissent” and “the dissent” on the mandate, but of course they should be referring to Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s concurrence. This wording and other sources suggest that there was originally a 5-4 majority striking down at least part of ObamaCare, but then the Chief Justice changed his mind.

The Justices may never confirm this informed speculation. But if it is true, this is far more damaging to the Court’s institutional integrity that the Chief Justice is known to revere than any ruling against ObamaCare. The political class and legal left conducted an extraordinary campaign to define such a decision as partisan and illegitimate. If the Chief Justice capitulated to this pressure, it shows the Court can be intimidated and swayed from its constitutional duties. If this was a play to compete with John Marshall’s legacy, the result is closer to William Brennan’s.

The Court did rule 7-2 against ObamaCare’s expansion of Medicaid, the supposedly voluntary federal-state program that once covered only the poor. The majority included liberal Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, who held this expansion to be unconstitutional because the feds commandeered state resources.

The problem is that this also involved rewriting the law. The majority merely created an opt-out that Governors and states could elect to preserve some measure of independent control, instead of telling Congress to start over. Still, this is the first time the Court has found a law enacted under Congress’s spending power to be unconstitutionally coercive.

But this and even the five votes limiting Congress under the Commerce Clause pale against the Chief Justice’s infinitely elastic and dangerous interpretation of the taxing power. Nancy Pelosi famously said we need to pass ObamaCare to find out what’s in it. It turns out we also needed John Roberts to write his appendix.”

A version of this article appeared June 29, 2012, on page A12 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Roberts Rules.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT
BUSINESS ET AL. v. SEBELIUS, SECRETARY OF
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 11–393. Argued March 26, 27, 28, 2012—Decided June 28, 2012*
In 2010, Congress enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in order to increase the number of Americans covered by health insurance and decrease the cost of health care. One key provision is the individual mandate, which requires most Americans to maintain“minimum essential” health insurance coverage. 26 U. S. C. §5000A.For individuals who are not exempt, and who do not receive health insurance through an employer or government program, the means of satisfying the requirement is to purchase insurance from a private company. Beginning in 2014, those who do not comply with the mandate must make a “[s]hared responsibility payment” to the Federal Government. §5000A(b)(1). The Act provides that this “penalty”will be paid to the Internal Revenue Service with an individual’s taxes, and “shall be assessed and collected in the same manner” as tax penalties. §§5000A(c), (g)(1).Another key provision of the Act is the Medicaid expansion. The current Medicaid program offers federal funding to States to assist pregnant women, children, needy families, the blind, the elderly, and the disabled in obtaining medical care. 42 U. S. C. §1396d(a). The Affordable Care Act expands the scope of the Medicaid program and increases the number of individuals the States must cover. For ex——————
*Together with No. 11–398, Department of Health and Human Services et al. v. Florida et al., and No. 11–400, Florida et al. v. Department of Health and Human Services et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
2 NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT
BUSINESS v. SEBELIUS
Syllabus
ample, the Act requires state programs to provide Medicaid coverage by 2014 to adults with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, whereas many States now cover adults with children only if their income is considerably lower, and do not cover childless adults at all. §1396a(a)(10)(A)(i)(VIII). The Act increases federal funding to cover the States’ costs in expanding Medicaid coverage. §1396d(y)(1).But if a State does not comply with the Act’s new coverage requirements, it may lose not only the federal funding for those requirements, but all of its federal Medicaid funds. §1396c.
Twenty-six States, several individuals, and the National Federation of Independent Business brought suit in Federal District Court,challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate and the Medicaid expansion. The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the Medicaid expansion as a valid exercise of Congress’s spending power, but concluded that Congress lacked authority to enact the individual mandate. Finding the mandate severable from the Act’s other provisions, the Eleventh Circuit left the rest of the Act intact.
Held: The judgment is affirmed in part and reversed in part.
648 F. 3d 1235, affirmed in part and reversed in part.
1. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part II, concluding that the Anti-Injunction Act does not bar this suit.
The Anti-Injunction Act provides that “no suit for the purpose of restraining the assessment or collection of any tax shall be maintained in any court by any person,” 26 U. S. C. §7421(a), so that those subject to a tax must first pay it and then sue for a refund. The present challenge seeks to restrain the collection of the shared responsibility payment from those who do not comply with the individual mandate. But Congress did not intend the payment to be treated asa “tax” for purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Affordable Care Act describes the payment as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” That label cannot control whether the payment is a tax for purposes of the Constitution, but it does determine the application of the Anti-Injunction Act. The Anti-Injunction Act therefore does not bar this suit. Pp. 11–
15.
2. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS concluded in Part III–A that the individual mandate is not a valid exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. Pp. 16–30.
(a) The Constitution grants Congress the power to “regulate Commerce.” Art. I, §8, cl. 3 (emphasis added). The power to regulate commerce presupposes the existence of commercial activity to be regulated. This Court’s precedent reflects this understanding: As expansive as this Court’s cases construing the scope of the commerce
Cite as: 567 U. S. ____ (2012) 3
Syllabus
power have been, they uniformly describe the power as reaching “activity.” E.g., United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 560. The individual mandate, however, does not regulate existing commercial activity. It instead compels individuals to become active in commerce by purchasing a product, on the ground that their failure to do so affects interstate commerce.
Construing the Commerce Clause to permit Congress to regulate individuals precisely because they are doing nothing would open a new and potentially vast domain to congressional authority. Congress

3. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS concluded in Part III–B that the individual mandate must be construed as imposing a tax on those who do not have health insurance, if such a construction is reasonable.
The most straightforward reading of the individual mandate is that it commands individuals to purchase insurance. But, for the reasons explained, the Commerce Clause does not give Congress that power.It is therefore necessary to turn to the Government’s alternative argument: that the mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s power to “lay and collect Taxes.” Art. I, §8, cl. 1. In pressing its taxing power argument, the Government asks the Court to view the mandate as imposing a tax on those who do not buy that product. Because “every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality,” Hooper v. California, 155
U. S. 648, 657, the question is whether it is “fairly possible” to inter4
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT
BUSINESS v. SEBELIUS
Syllabus
pret the mandate as imposing such a tax, Crowell v. Benson, 285
U. S. 22, 62. Pp. 31–32.
4. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part III–C, concluding that the individual mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s power under the Taxing Clause. Pp. 33–
44.
(a) The Affordable Care Act describes the “[s]hared responsibility payment” as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” That label is fatal to the application of the Anti-Injunction Act. It does not, however, control whether an exaction is within Congress’s power to tax. In answering that constitutional question, this Court follows a functional approach,“[d]isregarding the designation of the exaction, and viewing its substance and application.” United States v. Constantine, 296 U. S. 287,
294. Pp. 33–35.
(b)
Such an analysis suggests that the shared responsibility payment may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax. The payment is not so high that there is really no choice but to buy health insurance; the payment is not limited to willful violations, as penalties for unlawful acts often are; and the payment is collected solely by the IRS through the normal means of taxation. Cf. Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., 259 U. S. 20, 36–37. None of this is to say that payment is not intended to induce the purchase of health insurance. But the mandate need not be read to declare that failing to do so is unlawful. Neither the Affordable Care Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS. And Congress’s choice of language—stating that individuals “shall” obtain insurance or pay a “penalty”—does not require reading §5000A as punishing unlawful conduct. It may also be read as imposing a tax on those who go without insurance. See New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 169–174. Pp. 35–40.
(c)
Even if the mandate may reasonably be characterized as a tax, it must still comply with the Direct Tax Clause, which provides:“No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” Art. I, §9, cl. 4. A tax on going without health insurance is not like a capitation or other direct tax under this Court’s precedents. It therefore need not be apportioned so that each State pays in proportion to its population. Pp. 40–41.

We Demand Freedom: Popular Movements for Liberty in U.S. History

“…According to Dr. Stephen Davies, the tea party movement in the United States is not an isolated occurrence in American history. Rather, it’s part of a recurring movement in American history that ebbs and flows. These movements are peculiar, however, as they are unique to the United States. Dr. Stephen Davies offers several ideas as to why these movements exist in America. …”

“The collectivists idolize only the one true church, only the great nation . . . only the true state; everything else they condemn. For that reason all collectivists doctrines are harbingers of irreconcilable hatred and war to the death.”

“Individualism resulted in the fall of autocratic government, the establishment of democracy, the evolution of capitalism, technical improvements, and an unprecedented rise in standards of living. It substituted enlightenment for old superstitions, scientific methods of research for inveterate prejudices.”

“Capitalism means free enterprise, sovereignty of the consumers in economic matters, and sovereignty of the voters in political matters. Socialism means full government control of every sphere of the individuals life and the unrestricted supremacy of the government in its capacity as central board of production management.”

“There is simply no other choice than this: either to abstain from interference in the free play of the market, or to delegate the entire management of production and distribution to the government. Either capitalism or socialism: there exists no middle way.”

Krauthammer: Rush has a Condescending View of America

Historians Weigh Significance of Obama Tucson Speech

Shields and Brooks on Obama’s Tucson Speech, Calls for Political Civility

President Obama Speech at Tucson, AZ Memorial Service

What ‘New Tone?’ The Lunacy of Audacity & Hypocrisy On Full Display: Obama Vs. His Own Democrats

International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa and President Barack H. Obama addressed a Sept. 5 Labor Day rally largely of auto workers and union members in a parking lot of a General Motors plant in Detroit, Michigan.

Hoffa in introducing Obama used incendiary class warfare rhetoric to warm up the crowd:

“We got to keep an eye on the battle that we face: The war on workers. And you see it everywhere, it is the Tea Party. And you know, there is only one way to beat and win that war. The one thing about working people is we like a good fight. And you know what? They’ve got a war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner. It’s going to be the workers of Michigan, and America. We’re going to win that war.”

Hoffa concluded his remarks with a threat directed at the American people who support the tea party movement:

“President Obama, this is your army. We are ready to march. …”

“… Let’s take these son of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.”

Hoffa’s so-called “army” of union members has been shrinking for decades as the American people reject union representation and membership. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data from the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS), in 2010 union membership declined by 617,000 to 14.7 million of the labor force. The 14.7 million union workers consist of 7.1 million in the private sector and 7.6 million in the public sector. Only 6.9 percent of workers in the private sector are unionized, while 36 percent in the public sector are unionized. The percentage of wage and salary workers who are members of a union or similar organization has declined by 8.2 percent from 20.1 percent in 1983 to 11.9 percent of the labor force in 2010.

The Tea Party movement wants the Federal government to balance its budget by cutting government spending. This is a direct threat to unions, especially public sector unions, such as the National Education Association (NEA) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) who advocate for increasing the size and scope of the Federal government.

Increases in government spending lead to more government workers, many of whom become dues paying union members. This in turn leads to more campaign contributions to the Democratic Party. Unions are one of the major supporters of the Democratic Party and Obama in terms of campaign contributions paid from union member dues.

The number one priority of organized labor has been the passage of card check. Card check forces workers to sign a union authorization card in public instead of the current system where workers vote for or against unionization by secret ballot. Under card check a secret ballot election would be bypassed provided the National Labor Relation Board (NLRB) verifies that over 50 percent of the employees have signed the authorization cards. President Obama and the Democratic Party have been unsuccessful in their efforts to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

Other union leaders joining Hoffa and Obama at the Labor Day rally included American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) President Richard Trumka, United Auto Workers President Bob King, and SEIU President Mary Kay Henry.

When Obama addressed the crowd after Hoffa’s introduction, he said he was “proud” of Hoffa and the other labor union leaders.

On Jan. 8, 2011 there was a mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona where Jared Loughner, a mentality disturbed individual, killed six people including United States District Court for the District of Arizona Chief Judge John Roll and wounded thirteen including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Initially there were attempts by Democrats to blame the shootings on talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, the Tea Party, and Sarah Palin. Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik, a Democrat, blamed harsh conservative rhetoric on talk radio and in particular Rush Limbaugh. Dupnik remarked after the shootings:

“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”

The allegations were simply false and had no basis in fact. It turned out there was absolutely no connection found between the shooter, Loughner, and talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, the Tea Party and Sarah Palin. Limbaugh was right, the Sheriff made a complete fool of himself.

The American people and the Tea Party movement remember well Obama’s inspiring Tucson memorial speech for the victims of shootings when he said:

“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do, it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Christina-Taylor Green, who was born on September 11, 2011, was one of the Tucson shooting victims. She was also one of the babies in the book, Faces of Hope, a book picturing 50 babies born on Sept. 11, 2001. Referring to Christina, Obama said:

“…Imagine: here was a young girl who was just becoming aware of our democracy; just beginning to understand the obligations of citizenship; just starting to glimpse the fact that someday she too might play a part in shaping her nation’s future. She had been elected to her student council; she saw public service as something exciting, something hopeful. She was off to meet her congresswoman, someone she was sure was good and important and might be a role model. She saw all this through the eyes of a child, undimmed by the cynicism or vitriol that we adults all too often just take for granted.

I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us – we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations. …”

Many Americans and Tea Party members bring their children to Tea Party events all across America to exercise their right under the United States Constitution to peaceful assembly and free speech.

It is time for President Obama and union leaders to live up to our children’s expectations and condemn Hoffa’s remarks.

Background Articles and Videos

BLS Report Shows Union Membership in Decline

“…Union membership in the United States continued to decline in 2010, according to a recently-released reportissued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The data contained in the report was obtained from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which conducts monthly assessments of basic information on the labor force, employment, and unemployment. The annual report on union membership finds that the number of wage and salary workers who belong to a union declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million in 2010 (7.1 million workers in the private sector; 7.6 million in the public sector). An additional 1.6 million workers (783,000 of whom are government employees) held jobs that were covered by a union contract, but reported no union affiliation. Overall, the union membership rate fell to 11.9 percent, down from 12.3 percent the prior year. In contrast, the union membership rate in 1983 – the first year comparable data was available – was 20.1 percent, representing 17.7 million workers. Other notable findings include the following:

A substantially higher percentage of public sector workers, 36.2 percent, were unionized, compared to 6.9 percent for the private sector.

New York had the highest union membership rate (24.2 percent), while North Carolina had the lowest rate (3.2 percent). About half of the 14.7 million union members in the U.S. lived in just six states (California, 2.4 million; New York, 2.0 million; Illinois, 0.8 million; Pennsylvania, 0.8 million; Ohio, 0.7 million; and New Jersey, 0.6 million). Overall, union membership rates declined in 2010 in 33 states and the District of Columbia, and rose in 17 states.

With respect to union member demographics, membership rates tended to be greater among men (12.6 percent) than women (11.1 percent). African American workers had the highest participation rate (13.4 percent), with Asian men having the lowest rate (9.4 percent). Union membership was also highest among workers ages 55-64 (15.7 percent).

Iowa Straw Poll results

Gov. Perry Announces Presidential Bid

Texas Gov. Rick Perry Announces His Candidacy for President of the United States

Bachmann wins Iowa poll, Pawlenty drops out

MSNBC Gov. Tim Pawlenty is quitting the presidential race

The straw poll conducted by the Iowan Republican Party in Ames, Iowa Aug. 13 was the first real political test of the candidates. The poll is an early indicator of which candidates are both well organized and can attract campaign contributions from their supporters.

Minnesotan Congresswoman Michele Bachmann won the 2011 Ames, Iowa straw poll on Aug. 13 with 4,823 votes. She was followed closely by Texas Congressman Ron Paul with 4,671 votes, a gap of only 162 votes. Bachmann and Paul combined received more than 60 percent of the 16,892 total votes cast.

Lagging far behind in 3rd place was former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty with 2,293 votes and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum with 1,657 votes. Atlanta businessman and former talk radio show host Herman Cain received 1,456 votes, for a strong 5th place finish without spending a penny for radio or television advertising.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the Republican establishment front-runner candidate, received 567 votes with a 6th place finish. Former Speaker of The House of Representatives Newt Gingrich finished 7th and received 385 votes.

Texas Governor Rick Perry officially announced his candidacy for presidency of the United States in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina on Aug. 13. Perry promised that “I’ll work every day to try to make Washington, D.C. as inconsequential in your life as I can.” and unveiled the tag-line for his campaign, “It is time to get America working again”. Perry then flew off to Waterloo, Iowa on Aug. 14 and crashed the Republican Party Black Hawk County’s Lincoln Day dinner and fundraiser, where he and Bachmann were invited speakers.

Pawlenty announced on Aug.14 that he was dropping out of the race due to his 3rd place finish in the Iowa straw poll and his performance in the debates. Perry’s entry into the race was also a factor.

I am still supporting Paul as the presidential candidate and Bachmann as the vice-president candidate who would unite the fiscally responsible libertarian and social conservative wings of the Republican Party and Tea Party movement.

I consider both Romney and Perry to be closet progressives or RINOS (Republican In Name Only) with Perry also supporting a neoconservative interventionist foreign policy. Neither Romney nor Perry is up to the job of aggressively cutting the size and scope of the federal government, which would require closing 8 to 10 federal departments, cutting defense spending upwards of 25 percent, cutting entitlement spending (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare programs) and comprehensive tax reform–The FairTax.

Paul is the one candidate that truly believes in a limited constitutional republic with balanced budgets and a non-interventionist foreign policy by bringing the troops home, cutting unnecessary defense spending and ending foreign aid. His long voting record in Congress clearly demonstrates this. Paul is the only peace and prosperity candidate of either political party.

While the American people may believe and trust Paul, it is still not clear they will support him. The real question is, will the American people send him enough money to enable him to run against the Republican establishment candidates, Romney and Perry.

Who will win the Republican Party nomination for president in 2012? Which candidates will bring in the most money and use it wisely by building a well-organized campaign with a clear and concise message? Both Romney and Perry are capable of bringing in big Republican establishment money, especially from the military industrial complex and the petroleum industry.

“Show me the money” will be one of the tests all candidates must meet to remain viable. Money is required to pay for television and radio ads both in the primaries and the general election. Without money or campaign contributions, the majority of the American people who do not follow politics simply won’t be familiar enough with the candidates or their position on the issues.

What is interesting to note is Paul leads all the other candidates for president, including Barack Obama by a large margin in terms of campaign contributions from active duty military. It remains to be seen whether he and Bachmann can consistently bring in enough money from the American people. If they cannot, then either Republican Party establishment candidates, Romney or Perry, should win the presidency in 2012.

Rubio Joins Floor Debate: No Spending Bills Without A Budget

Lee Joins Floor Debate: No Spending Bills Without A Budget

“Defending the Tea Party Against Sen. John Kerry”

Michele Bachmann Calls on President to Demand Geithner’s Resignation

Ron Paul on Bloomberg: Out of Control Spending Responsible for Downgrade

The Tea Party demands that the Democratic and Republican Party establishments live within the means of the American people by balancing the budget every year.

If either political party had done this when they were in power, Standard & Poor’s would not have downgraded the Treasury Securities of the United States.

The Democratic Party controlled both the Senate and House of Representatives from January 2007 through January 2011 and ran up massive budgetary deficits and together with a $787 billion stimulus package increased the National Debt by nearly $7,000 billion.

The S&P downgrade was a direct result of this massive spending and huge increases in the National Debt that have now exceeded 100% of Gross Domestic Product.

Now the President, his propagandists and fellow Democrats blame the tea party for the downgrade–the big lie repeated over and over again.

The truth is the Tea Party pointed out that both political parties were not fiscally responsible and future budgets needed to be balanced or in surplus.

This requires massive cuts in the budget baseline itself and not just reductions in the rate of growth of the budget baseline.

The political elites are aware that the American people know they are being lied to and many of the current Senators and Representatives will be replaced by candidates who truly believe in fiscal responsibility and a constitutional republic.

While it may take several elections to accomplish this, President Obama will be fired by the American people for his failure of leadership in deliverying a peace and prosperity economy.

The American people oppose adding between $7,000 billion to $8,000 billion to the National debt over the next ten years.

The American people oppose the tax hike of repealing Bush tax rate cuts and locking in tax hikes for Obamacare that this bill would enable.

The American people are not fooled by the so-call spending cuts that are in fact only cuts in the rate of growth of the budget baseline and not actual cuts in the budget baseline itself.

The American people oppose yet another increase the national debt ceiling without either a balanced budget amendment being passed by two-thirds majorities in the House and Senate or a balanced budget within three years.

Now is the time for all good tea party members to come to the aid of their country and vote against the Democratic and Republican Party establishment’s compromise bill to raise the National debt ceiling by over $900 billion for Fiscal Year 2011 and add over $7,000 in additional deficit spending and more national debt over the next ten-year.

For the proposed Fiscal Year 2012 and 2013 budgets the total effect on deficits is only a reduction of $21 billion and $42 billion respectively excluding any future reductions of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.

The American people are watching to see if the Tea Party caucus votes as a block to defeat this bill.

Those tea party members who vote in favor of the bill will be challenged in the primaries next year and defeated.

The tea party patriots are not pleased with those Tea Party member who apparently sold out and betrayed the tea party.

The tea party and the American people will be watching.

Should this bill pass the Federal Reserve will start printing money with quantitative easing 3 or creating money to purchase Treasury securities or more debt.

Quantitative Easing 3 or creating more money to buy U.S. Treasury securities will begin in the fall after the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee officially determines that the U.S. Economy has been in a recession since the middle of 2010.

Once it is announced the U.S. economy is again in a recession, the Federal Reserve will use this fact to justify another massive money printing program of over $1,000 billion to finance the deficit spending in Fiscal Year 2012 of over $1,000 billion.

This in turn will lead to inflation or a general rise in the price level.

The economy is currently in a another recession that started in July 2010–the dreaded double dip recession.

The result will be even higher unemployment rates and inflation–stagflation.

This bill is not only not perfect, it is an economic disaster in the making.

Vote for this bill and you will be wrecking the economy, destroying jobs and killing the American dream.

The American people will not forget those who voted for this bill–both Democrats and Republicans.

You do not compromise your principles to vote for this bill especially given the damage this bill will cause to the American people and economy.

In 2012 the tea party will double its numbers in the Congress and the Senate with over 100 Representatives and over 12 Senators who have signed the Fiscal Responsibility Pledge.

Judge: You Can’t Get Out of Debt By Spending

American Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.”~Thomas Jefferson

Fiscal Responsibility Pledge

I, ________________________________________, pledge to the taxpayers of the state

of ____________________________, and to the American people that I will:

1. Support and vote for only balanced budgets or surplus budgets where total estimated Federal government tax revenues for each fiscal year equals or exceeds total estimated Federal government spending outlays.

2. Support and vote for only decreases in the national debt ceiling.

3. Support and vote for the FairTax. The FairTax abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax on new goods and services, and administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities. Once enacted any changes in the FairTax or increases in the FairTax rate will require two-thirds roll call vote of the House of Representatives and Senate.

4. Support and vote for the repeal of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

5. Support and vote for a balanced budget Amendment to the Constitution of the United State which allows budget surpluses or requires the balancing of tax revenues and spending outlays each fiscal year, limits Federal Government spending to eight-teen percent (18%) of Gross Domestic Product or less, requires a two-thirds majority roll call vote for any proposed tax increase in the House of Representatives and Senate and where the only exception to a surplus budget or balanced budget is the passage of a declaration of war that would require unbalanced budgets and increases in the national debt.

Michael Savage-August 1, 2011 part 3

Baseline Budgeting Explained

US Business Cycle Expansions and Contractions

The NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee

“…The NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee maintains a chronology of the U.S. business cycle. The chronology comprises alternating dates of peaks and troughs in economic activity. A recession is a period between a peak and a trough, and an expansion is a period between a trough and a peak. During a recession, a significant decline in economic activity spreads across the economy and can last from a few months to more than a year. Similarly, during an expansion, economic activity rises substantially, spreads across the economy, and usually lasts for several years.

In both recessions and expansions, brief reversals in economic activity may occur-a recession may include a short period of expansion followed by further decline; an expansion may include a short period of contraction followed by further growth. The Committee applies its judgment based on the above definitions of recessions and expansions and has no fixed rule to determine whether a contraction is only a short interruption of an expansion, or an expansion is only a short interruption of a contraction. The most recent example of such a judgment that was less than obvious was in 1980-1982, when the Committee determined that the contraction that began in 1981 was not a continuation of the one that began in 1980, but rather a separate full recession.

The Committee does not have a fixed definition of economic activity. It examines and compares the behavior of various measures of broad activity: real GDP measured on the product and income sides, economy-wide employment, and real income. The Committee also may consider indicators that do not cover the entire economy, such as real sales and the Federal Reserve’s index of industrial production (IP). The Committee’s use of these indicators in conjunction with the broad measures recognizes the issue of double-counting of sectors included in both those indicators and the broad measures. Still, a well-defined peak or trough in real sales or IP might help to determine the overall peak or trough dates, particularly if the economy-wide indicators are in conflict or do not have well-defined peaks or troughs.

FAQs – Frequently asked Questions and additional information on how the NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee chooses turning points in the Economy …”

“…In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase. No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the cuts being discussed are illusory and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in prospective spending increases. This is akin to a family saving $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda.

But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about the unrepentant plundering of the American people. The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith in the credit of the United States being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family’s income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.

In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of cuts that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to cut. It would only take us five years to cut $1 trillion in Washington math just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.

A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply referred to that year’s spending levels, which would hardly do us fear, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever. …”

Congress moving quickly on debt and spending deal

“…Tea party favorite and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., countered that the deal “spends too much and doesn’t cut enough. … Someone has to say no. I will.”

The government presently borrows more than 40 cents of every dollar it spends, and without an infusion of borrowing authority, the government would face an unprecedented default on U.S. loans and obligations — like $23 billion worth of Social Security pension payments to retirees due Aug. 3.

The increased borrowing authority includes $400 billion that would take effect immediately and $500 billion that Obama could order unless specifically denied by Congress. That $900 billion increase in the debt cap would be matched by savings produced over the coming decade by capping spending on day-to-day agency budgets passed by Congress each year.

A special bipartisan committee would be established to find up to $1.5 trillion in deficit cuts, probably taken from benefit programs like farm subsidies, Medicare and the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled. Republicans dismissed the idea that the panel would approve tax increases.

Any agreement by the panel would be voted on by both House and Senate — and if the panel deadlocked, automatic spending cuts would slash across much of the federal budget. Social Security, Medicaid and food stamps would be exempt from the automatic cuts, but payments to doctors, nursing homes and other Medicare providers could be trimmed, as could subsidies to insurance companies that offer an alternative to government-run Medicare.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he’d have to “swallow hard” and vote for the legislation even though he is worried about cuts in defense spending. …”

The Tea Party Caucus is a caucus of the United States House of Representatives and Senate launched and chaired by Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann on July 16, 2010.[1] The caucus is dedicated to promoting fiscal responsibility, adherence to the movement’s interpretation of the Constitution, and limited government. The idea of a Tea Party Caucus originated from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul when he was campaigning for his current seat.[2]

The caucus was approved as an official congressional member organization by the House Administration Committee on July 19, 2010[3] and held its first meeting on July 21. Its first public event was a press conference on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, also on July 21.[4] Four Senators joined the caucus on January 27, 2011.[5]

Members, 112th Congress

The caucus chairman is Michele Bachmann of Minnesota. As of March 31, 2011 the committee has 60 members, all Republicans.[15]

Sandy Adams, Florida

Robert Aderholt, Alabama

Todd Akin, Missouri

Rodney Alexander, Louisiana

Michele Bachmann, Minnesota, Chairman

Roscoe Bartlett, Maryland

Joe Barton, Texas

Gus Bilirakis, Florida

Rob Bishop, Utah

Diane Black, Tennessee

Michael C. Burgess, Texas

Paul Broun, Georgia

Dan Burton, Indiana

John Carter, Texas

Bill Cassidy, Louisiana

Howard Coble, North Carolina

Mike Coffman, Colorado

Chip Cravaack, Minnesota

Ander Crenshaw, Florida

John Culberson, Texas

Jeff Duncan, South Carolina

Blake Farenthold, Texas

Stephen Fincher, Tennessee

John Fleming, Louisiana

Trent Franks, Arizona

Phil Gingrey, Georgia

Louie Gohmert, Texas

Vicky Hartzler, Missouri

Wally Herger, California

Tim Huelskamp, Kansas

Lynn Jenkins, Kansas

Steve King, Iowa

Doug Lamborn, Colorado

Jeff Landry, Louisiana

Blaine Luetkemeyer, Missouri

Kenny Marchant, Texas

Tom McClintock, California

David McKinley, West Virginia

Gary Miller, California

Mick Mulvaney, South Carolina

Randy Neugebauer, Texas

Rich Nugent, Florida

Steve Pearce, New Mexico

Mike Pence, Indiana

Ted Poe, Texas

Tom Price, Georgia

Denny Rehberg, Montana

Phil Roe, Tennessee

Dennis Ross, Florida

Ed Royce, California

Steve Scalise, Louisiana

Tim Scott, South Carolina

Pete Sessions, Texas

Adrian Smith, Nebraska

Lamar Smith, Texas

Cliff Stearns, Florida

Tim Walberg, Michigan

Joe Walsh, Illinois

Allen West, Florida

Lynn Westmoreland, Georgia

Joe Wilson, South Carolina

Members of Senate Caucus

Jim DeMint (South Carolina)[5]

Mike Lee (Utah)[5]

Jerry Moran (Kansas)

Rand Paul (Kentucky)[5]

Aronoff: Media’s Disgraceful Coverage of Debt-Ceiling Debate

“…The general performance of the media during the debt ceiling debate has been atrocious. The currency of journalists consists of words, and by completely debasing that currency, they are undermining their profession. They are also making it that much more difficult for the public to understand the choices and the consequences they are facing.

The constant reference to August 2nd being the date we default on our debt is utterly false. ABC has shown a “Countdown to Default” clock, ticking away to August 2nd. CNN has run similar graphics, as have all the networks, including the Fox News Channel. Even today MSNBC is showing a graphic that says, “Four Days to Default.” They have continued right through this week. Default occurs only if and when the U.S. fails to make interest payments to the bondholders on the debt it owes. Not only is August 2nd not the day the U.S. defaults on its debt, but the issue could easily be taken off the table, and President Obama could calm the markets by announcing that under no circumstances will he allow the U.S. to default, and he could assure that by saying he will definitely make that payment the highest priority until a deal is reached in Congress. Instead, he chose to have the debt ceiling “used as a gun against the heads” of Americans, which is exactly what he accused the Republicans of doing earlier this month, in language that was supposed to be no longer acceptable after the tragic shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson last January.

Charles Gasparino of Fox Business News reported this week that the Obama administration has begun calling major Wall Street banks to assure them that the U.S. won’t default on its debt. Sources have told me that the administration is also trying to get the banks to lobby on its behalf.

The other egregious falsehood reveals an astounding lack of knowledge, or willingness to deceive, about the difference between the deficit and the national debt. Here, for example, from Jake Tapper of ABC News: “The president continues to push for a ‘grand bargain,’ buoyed by the bipartisan ‘Gang of Six’ proposal that would reduce the deficit by $3.7 trillion over the next decade through spending cuts and tax increases.”

And here, from Stephanie Condon of CBS News: “The deal would reduce the deficit by nearly $4 trillion…”

President Obama in his July 25th prime time address to the country said, “This balanced approach asks everyone to give a little without requiring anyone to sacrifice too much. It would reduce the deficit (emphasis added) by around $4 trillion and put us on a path to pay down our debt.

This misuse of the language has been the rule, not the exception. As explained on the Treasury Department’s own website, “The deficit is the difference between the money Government takes in, called receipts, and what the Government spends, called outlays, each year.” (emphasis added) The same website says that “One way to think about the debt is as accumulated deficits.” This is basic economics, but astonishingly, the President and most of the media constantly get it wrong. Is it on purpose, to mislead, or do they not understand the difference? …”

Baseline (budgeting)

“…Baseline budgeting is a method of developing a budget which uses existing spending levels as the basis for establishing future funding requirements. The concept assumes that the organization is generally headed in the right direction and only minor changes in spending levels will be required. The baseline is normally enhanced by adding adjustment factors based on issues such as inflation, new programs, and anticipated changes to existing programs.

The genesis of baseline budget projections can be found in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. That act required the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to prepare projections of federal spending for the upcoming fiscal year based on a continuation of the existing level of governmental services. It also required the newly established Congressional Budget Office to prepare five-year projections of budget authority, outlays, revenues, and the surplus or deficit. OMB published its initial current-services budget projections in November 1974, and CBO’s five-year projections first appeared in January 1976. Today’s baseline budget projections are very much like those prepared more than two decades ago, although they now span 10 years instead of five.

The Budget Act was silent on whether to adjust estimates of discretionary appropriations for anticipated changes in inflation. Until 1980, OMB’s projections excluded inflation adjustments for discretionary programs. CBO’s projections, however, assumed that appropriations would keep pace with inflation, although CBO has also published projections without these so-called discretionary inflation adjustments.

CBO’s budget projections took on added importance in 1980 and 1981, when they served as the baseline for computing spending reductions to be achieved in the budget reconciliation process. The reconciliation instructions contained in the fiscal year 1982 budget resolution (the so-called Gramm-Latta budget) required House and Senate committees to reduce outlays by a total of $36 billion below baseline levels, but each committee could determine how those savings were to be achieved. The CBO baseline has been used in every year since 1981 for developing budget resolutions and measuring compliance with reconciliation instructions.

The Deficit Control Act of 1985 provided the first legal definition of baseline. For the most part, the act defined the baseline in conformity with previous usage. If appropriations had not been enacted for the upcoming fiscal year, the baseline was to assume the previous year’s level without any adjustment for inflation. In 1987, however, the Congress amended the definition of the baseline so that discretionary appropriations would be adjusted to keep pace with inflation. Other technical changes to the definition of the baseline were enacted in 1990, 1993, and 1997.

Baseline budget projections increasingly became the subject of political debate and controversy during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and more recently during the 2011 debt limit debate. Some critics contend that baseline projections create a bias in favor of spending by assuming that federal spending keeps pace with inflation and other factors driving the growth of entitlement programs. Changes that merely slow the growth of federal spending programs have often been described as cuts in spending, when in reality they are actually reductions in the rate of spending growth.

There have been attempts to eliminate the baseline budget concept and replace it with zero based budgeting, which is the opposite of baseline budgeting. Zero based budgeting requires that all spending must be re-justified each year or it will be eliminated from the budget regardless of previous spending levels.

“An estimate of spending, revenue, the deficit or surplus, and the public debt expected during a fiscal year under current laws and current policy. The baseline is a benchmark for measuring the budgetary effects of proposed changes in revenues and spending. It assumes that receipts and mandatory spending will continue or expire in the future as required by law and that the future funding for discretionary programs will equal the most recently enacted appropriation, adjusted for inflation. Under the Budget Enforcement Act (BEA), which will expire at the end of fiscal year 2006, the baseline is defined as the projection of current-year levels of new budget authority, outlays, revenues, and the surplus or deficit into the budget year and outyears based on laws enacted through the applicable date.

CBO Baseline

Projected levels of governmental receipts (revenues), budget authority, and outlays for the budget year and subsequent fiscal years, assuming generally that current policies remain the same, except as directed by law. The baseline is described in the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) annual report for the House and Senate Budget Committees, The Budget and Economic Outlook, which is published in January. The baseline, by law, includes projections for 5 years, but at the request of the Budget Committees, CBO has provided such projections for 10 years. In most years the CBO baseline is revised in conjunction with CBO’s analysis of the President’s budget, which is usually issued in March, and again during the summer. The “March” baseline is the benchmark for measuring the budgetary effects of proposed legislation under consideration by Congress.” …”

Rasmussen Reports

Most Voters Are Unhappy With Both Sides in the Debt Ceiling Debate

“…Most voters don’t care much for the way either political party is performing in the federal debt ceiling debate.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% of Likely U.S. Voters at least somewhat disapprove of the way President Obama and congressional Democrats are handling the debate over the debt ceiling, with 38% who Strongly Disapprove. But 53% also disapprove of how congressional Republicans are handling the debate, including 32% who Strongly Disapprove.

Just 36% approve of how Obama and Democrats are doing, with 10% who Strongly Approve. Forty percent (40%) approve of the GOP’s performance, including 13% who Strongly Approve. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

While the two sides continue to wrangle over how to avoid defaulting on the government’s massive debt load, most voters nationwide are worried the final deal will raise taxes too much and cut spending too little.

Whatever spending cuts are in the final deal, 49% of all voters don’t think the government will actually cut the spending agreed upon. A commentary by Scott Rasmussen,published in Politico, put it this way: “Based on the history of the past few decades, voters have learned that politicians promising unspecified spending cuts should be treated with all the credibility of a six-year old boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar promising to be good for the rest of his life.” …”

Rasmussen Reports

55% Oppose Tax Hike In Debt Ceiling Deal

“…As the Beltway politicians try to figure out how they will raise the debt ceiling and for how long, most voters oppose including tax hikes in the deal.

Just 34% think a tax hike should be included in any legislation to raise the debt ceiling. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% disagree and say it should not. …”

“…There is a huge partisan divide on the question. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats want a tax hike in the deal while 82% of Republicans do not. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, 35% favor a tax hike and 51% are opposed.

Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year are evenly divided as to whether a tax hike should be included in the debt ceiling deal. Those who earn less are opposed to including tax hikes.

Voters remain very concerned about the debt ceiling issue. Sixty-nine percent (69%) believe that it would be bad for the economy if a failure to raise the debt ceiling led to government defaults. Only 6% believe it would be good for theeconomy. Fourteen percent (14%) believe it would have no impact and 11% are notsure. These figures are little changed from a few weeks ago. …”

House passes Ryan’s ’12 budget; conservatives want more cuts

By Erik Wasson and Pete Kasperowicz – 04/15/11

“…The House on Friday approved a fiscal year 2012 budget resolution from Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that seeks to drastically limit government spending next year and in years to follow.

But the vote on the measure — which imposes $5.8 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade — came after a clear sign that at least half of the Republican Caucus supports even tougher spending cuts.

The final tally was 235-193, with four Republicans opposing it. They were Reps. Ron Paul (Texas), Denny Rehberg (Mont.), Walter Jones (N.C.) and David McKinley (W.Va.).

Rehberg, the appropriator in charge of health spending, is running for Montana’s Senate seat.

Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said listening sessions with Republican members made it the strongest vote of the year.

House passes cut, cap and balance — and a deal is in sight

“…The Republican-controlled House defied a presidential veto threat Tuesday night in approving a bill to amend the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget. But Speaker John A. Boehner acknowledged that a backup plan is needed, and a Senate GOP leader said he expects such an alternative to win his chamber’s approval.

The House voted 234 to 190 in favor of the “Cut, Cap and Balance Act,” which the White House has said will be vetoed in the unlikely event it passes the Senate and reaches President Obama’s desk. Faced with those prospects, Boehner told reporters that it would also be responsible to consider a backup plan for raising the federal debt ceiling and thus averting a potentially disastrous default on U.S. obligations.

The Tea Party movement Representatives, Senators and supporters in the spirit of compromise, a balanced approach and fiscal responsibility offers both the Democratic and Republican Party establishments and their leadership a Great Deal that the American people fully support–A Balanced Budget!

The Tea Party movement will agree to a $2,400 billion immediate increase in the National Debt ceiling in exchange for balancing the Fiscal Year 2012 budget by an immediate decrease in estimated spending outlays of $1,200 billion which will balance the Fiscal Year 2012 with estimated tax revenues of about $2,500 billion.

Do the right thing for your children, grandchildren and future generations by announcing your acceptance of The Great Deal today.

This would restore consumer and business confidence, grow the economy and dramatically reduce the unemployment rates.

Baseline (budgeting)

“…Baseline budgeting is a method of developing a budget which uses existing spending levels as the basis for establishing future funding requirements. The concept assumes that the organization is generally headed in the right direction and only minor changes in spending levels will be required. The baseline is normally enhanced by adding adjustment factors based on issues such as inflation, new programs, and anticipated changes to existing programs.

The genesis of baseline budget projections can be found in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. That act required the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to prepare projections of federal spending for the upcoming fiscal year based on a continuation of the existing level of governmental services. It also required the newly established Congressional Budget Office to prepare five-year projections of budget authority, outlays, revenues, and the surplus or deficit. OMB published its initial current-services budget projections in November 1974, and CBO’s five-year projections first appeared in January 1976. Today’s baseline budget projections are very much like those prepared more than two decades ago, although they now span 10 years instead of five.

The Budget Act was silent on whether to adjust estimates of discretionary appropriations for anticipated changes in inflation. Until 1980, OMB’s projections excluded inflation adjustments for discretionary programs. CBO’s projections, however, assumed that appropriations would keep pace with inflation, although CBO has also published projections without these so-called discretionary inflation adjustments.

CBO’s budget projections took on added importance in 1980 and 1981, when they served as the baseline for computing spending reductions to be achieved in the budget reconciliation process. The reconciliation instructions contained in the fiscal year 1982 budget resolution (the so-called Gramm-Latta budget) required House and Senate committees to reduce outlays by a total of $36 billion below baseline levels, but each committee could determine how those savings were to be achieved. The CBO baseline has been used in every year since 1981 for developing budget resolutions and measuring compliance with reconciliation instructions.

The Deficit Control Act of 1985 provided the first legal definition of baseline. For the most part, the act defined the baseline in conformity with previous usage. If appropriations had not been enacted for the upcoming fiscal year, the baseline was to assume the previous year’s level without any adjustment for inflation. In 1987, however, the Congress amended the definition of the baseline so that discretionary appropriations would be adjusted to keep pace with inflation. Other technical changes to the definition of the baseline were enacted in 1990, 1993, and 1997.

Baseline budget projections increasingly became the subject of political debate and controversy during the late 1980s and early 1990s, and more recently during the 2011 debt limit debate. Some critics contend that baseline projections create a bias in favor of spending by assuming that federal spending keeps pace with inflation and other factors driving the growth of entitlement programs. Changes that merely slow the growth of federal spending programs have often been described as cuts in spending, when in reality they are actually reductions in the rate of spending growth.

There have been attempts to eliminate the baseline budget concept and replace it with zero based budgeting, which is the opposite of baseline budgeting. Zero based budgeting requires that all spending must be re-justified each year or it will be eliminated from the budget regardless of previous spending levels.

“An estimate of spending, revenue, the deficit or surplus, and the public debt expected during a fiscal year under current laws and current policy. The baseline is a benchmark for measuring the budgetary effects of proposed changes in revenues and spending. It assumes that receipts and mandatory spending will continue or expire in the future as required by law and that the future funding for discretionary programs will equal the most recently enacted appropriation, adjusted for inflation. Under the Budget Enforcement Act (BEA), which will expire at the end of fiscal year 2006, the baseline is defined as the projection of current-year levels of new budget authority, outlays, revenues, and the surplus or deficit into the budget year and outyears based on laws enacted through the applicable date.

CBO Baseline

Projected levels of governmental receipts (revenues), budget authority, and outlays for the budget year and subsequent fiscal years, assuming generally that current policies remain the same, except as directed by law. The baseline is described in the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) annual report for the House and Senate Budget Committees, The Budget and Economic Outlook, which is published in January. The baseline, by law, includes projections for 5 years, but at the request of the Budget Committees, CBO has provided such projections for 10 years. In most years the CBO baseline is revised in conjunction with CBO’s analysis of the President’s budget, which is usually issued in March, and again during the summer. The “March” baseline is the benchmark for measuring the budgetary effects of proposed legislation under consideration by Congress.” …”

Background Articles and Video

Sen. Toomey Gives a Speech on the Debt Limit at AEI

Smoke and Mirrors on Spending Cuts

Ron Paul on the U.S. Government’s Debt Crisis

The Debt Limit: Made Simple

Ron Paul 2012 Amazing!!!

Rasmussen Reports

Most Voters Are Unhappy With Both Sides in the Debt Ceiling Debate

“…Most voters don’t care much for the way either political party is performing in the federal debt ceiling debate.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 58% of Likely U.S. Voters at least somewhat disapprove of the way President Obama and congressional Democrats are handling the debate over the debt ceiling, with 38% who Strongly Disapprove. But 53% also disapprove of how congressional Republicans are handling the debate, including 32% who Strongly Disapprove.

Just 36% approve of how Obama and Democrats are doing, with 10% who Strongly Approve. Forty percent (40%) approve of the GOP’s performance, including 13% who Strongly Approve. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

While the two sides continue to wrangle over how to avoid defaulting on the government’s massive debt load, most voters nationwide are worried the final deal will raise taxes too much and cut spending too little.

Whatever spending cuts are in the final deal, 49% of all voters don’t think the government will actually cut the spending agreed upon. A commentary by Scott Rasmussen,published in Politico, put it this way: “Based on the history of the past few decades, voters have learned that politicians promising unspecified spending cuts should be treated with all the credibility of a six-year old boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar promising to be good for the rest of his life.” …”

Rasmussen Reports

55% Oppose Tax Hike In Debt Ceiling Deal

“…As the Beltway politicians try to figure out how they will raise the debt ceiling and for how long, most voters oppose including tax hikes in the deal.

Just 34% think a tax hike should be included in any legislation to raise the debt ceiling. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% disagree and say it should not. …”

“…There is a huge partisan divide on the question. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Democrats want a tax hike in the deal while 82% of Republicans do not. Among those not affiliated with either major political party, 35% favor a tax hike and 51% are opposed.

Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year are evenly divided as to whether a tax hike should be included in the debt ceiling deal. Those who earn less are opposed to including tax hikes.

Voters remain very concerned about the debt ceiling issue. Sixty-nine percent (69%) believe that it would be bad for the economy if a failure to raise the debt ceiling led to government defaults. Only 6% believe it would be good for theeconomy. Fourteen percent (14%) believe it would have no impact and 11% are notsure. These figures are little changed from a few weeks ago. …”

House passes Ryan’s ’12 budget; conservatives want more cuts

By Erik Wasson and Pete Kasperowicz – 04/15/11

“…The House on Friday approved a fiscal year 2012 budget resolution from Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that seeks to drastically limit government spending next year and in years to follow.

But the vote on the measure — which imposes $5.8 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade — came after a clear sign that at least half of the Republican Caucus supports even tougher spending cuts.

The final tally was 235-193, with four Republicans opposing it. They were Reps. Ron Paul (Texas), Denny Rehberg (Mont.), Walter Jones (N.C.) and David McKinley (W.Va.).

Rehberg, the appropriator in charge of health spending, is running for Montana’s Senate seat.

Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said listening sessions with Republican members made it the strongest vote of the year.

House passes cut, cap and balance — and a deal is in sight

“…The Republican-controlled House defied a presidential veto threat Tuesday night in approving a bill to amend the Constitution to require a balanced federal budget. But Speaker John A. Boehner acknowledged that a backup plan is needed, and a Senate GOP leader said he expects such an alternative to win his chamber’s approval.

The House voted 234 to 190 in favor of the “Cut, Cap and Balance Act,” which the White House has said will be vetoed in the unlikely event it passes the Senate and reaches President Obama’s desk. Faced with those prospects, Boehner told reporters that it would also be responsible to consider a backup plan for raising the federal debt ceiling and thus averting a potentially disastrous default on U.S. obligations.

Ron Paul on Freedom Watch: We Are Defaulting Either Way

Rand Paul Blasts Reid, Boehner Plans [FOX 7-27-2011]

Ron Paul on Freedom Watch 07/27/11

Ron Paul to Congress: If Debt Is the Problem, Why Do You Want More of It?

The Laura Ingraham Show – Speaker John Boehner answers tea party criticism

Office of the Majority Whip | Balanced Budget Amendment Video

Debt Ceiling Crisis: Boehner vs. Tea Party

SA@TAC – Ron Paul’s Pledge to America

Smoke and Mirrors on Spending Cuts

House GOP’s $61 Billion Spending Cuts in Perspective

John Boehner Goes Back On The Head Of The Republican Parties Radio Show Rush Limbaugh

McCain to Republicans: Pushing Balanced Budget Amendment is “Bizarro”

FOX: DeMint Slams Reid & Boehner Plans

Mark Levin Interviews Jim Demint – I’m Not Encouraged By Whats Going On In Washington Right Now

Ron Paul Ad – Conviction

The tea party movement has been betrayed by the Republican Party establishment leadership including John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan.

The big dirty secret the ruling class in Washington D.C. do not want the American people to know is the Fiscal Year 2012 budget will be in deficit by about $1,000 billion.

The Boehner bill will add over $7,000 billion in additional debt over the next ten years and would not balance in any of the next ten years!

This is not fiscally responsible nor is it a “balanced approach”.

This is business as usual and a betrayal of the American people and the conservative, libertarian and tea party movements.

The Democratic and Republican Establishments aka the “ruling class” are addicted to spending money the American people do not have on things the American people do not need.

The Democratic and Republican Establishments try to fool the American people with phony cuts in the growth of the current services baseline budget by emphasizing trillion-dollar “cuts” over a ten-year budget timeframe.

There are never any cuts in the current service baseline budget only cuts in the growth rates over ten years of the budget baseline.

Underwhelming Spending Cuts from Congress and Obama

“Cut, Cap and Balance,” the Debt Ceiling and Federal Spending

The American people are not fooled by this nonsense and rubbish.

The only year that counts is Fiscal Year 2012 that starts October 1, 2011 and ends September 30, 2012.

The only cuts that are real are actual cuts in the budget baseline itself and not cuts in the rate of growth of that baseline.

Peter Ferrara’s Too-Nice Attack on Phony Washington Budget Deals

Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell

“…Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Peter Ferrara of the Institute for Policy Innovation explains that Washington budget deals don’t work because politicians never follow through on promised spending cuts. This is a very relevant argument, since President Obama’s so-called Deficit Reduction Commission supposedly is considering a deal featuring $3 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases (disturbingly reminiscent of what was promised — but never delivered — as part of the infamous 1982 TEFRA budget scam).

Washington’s traditional approach to balancing the budget is to negotiate an agreement on a package of benefit cuts and tax increases. President Obama’s deficit commission seems likely to recommend just this strategy in December. The problem is that it never works. What happens is the tax increases get permanently adopted into law. But the spending cuts are almost never fully adopted and, even if they are, they are soon swept away in the next spendthrift budget. Then — because taxes weaken incentives to produce — the tax increases don’t raise the revenue that Congress initially projected and budgeted to spend. So the deficit reappears.

In 1982, congressional Democrats promised President Ronald Reagan $3 in spending cuts for every dollar in tax increases. Reagan went to his grave waiting for those spending cuts. Then there was the budget deal in 1990, when President George H.W. Bush agreed to violate his famous campaign pledge — “Read my lips, no new taxes,” he had said in 1988 — in pursuit of a balanced budget. But after the deal, the deficit increased substantially: to $290 billion in 1992 from $221 billion in 1990.

As the excerpt indicates, Peter’s column is solid and everything he writes is correct, but it suffers from one major sin of omission. He should have exposed the dishonest practice of using “current services” or “baseline” budgeting. This is the clever Washington practice of assuming that all previously planned spending increases should go into effect and categorizing any budget that increases spending by a lower amount as a spending cut. In other words, if the hypothetical “baseline” budget increases by 7 percent, and a budget is proposed that increases spending by 4 percent, that 4 percent spending increase magically gets transformed into a 3 percent spending cut.

Politicians love “current services” or “baseline” budgeting for two reasons. First, it allows them to have their cake and eat it too. They can simultaneously shovel more money to interest groups while telling voters they are “cutting” spending. Second, it rigs the process in favor of bigger government. This is because lawmakers who actually propose to restrain the growth of spending can be lambasted for wanting “savage” and “draconian” budget cuts totaling “trillions of dollars” when all they’re actually proposing is to have spending grow by less than the so-called baseline. But since people in the real world use honest math rather than “current services” math, they assume that spending is being reduced next year by some large amount compared to what is being spent this year. And if the phony budget cut numbers sound too big (especially for specific programs such as Medicare or Medicaid), they sometimes conclude that it would be better to raise taxes.

Speaking of which, the same misleading process works on the revenue side of the budget. The politicians automatically get to keep whatever additional revenue is generated by population growth and higher incomes, which is not trivial since revenue in a typical year grows faster than nominal GDP. But when they do a budget deal featuring X dollars of tax increases for every Y dollars of spending cuts, the additional taxes are always on top of the revenue increases that already are occurring. And since the supposed spending cuts invariably are nothing more than reductions in planned increases, it should come as no surprise that the burden of spending always seems to increase. …”

American Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.”~Thomas Jefferson

Fiscal Responsibility Pledge

I, ________________________________________, pledge to the taxpayers of the state

of ____________________________, and to the American people that I will:

1. Support and vote for only balanced budgets or surplus budgets where total estimated Federal government tax revenues for each fiscal year equals or exceeds total estimated Federal government spending outlays.

2. Support and vote for only decreases in the national debt ceiling.

3. Support and vote for the FairTax. The FairTax abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax on new goods and services, and administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities. Once enacted any changes in the FairTax or increases in the FairTax rate will require two-thirds roll call vote of the House of Representatives and Senate.

4. Support and vote for the repeal of the 16th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

5. Support and vote for a balanced budget Amendment to the Constitution of the United State which allows budget surpluses or requires the balancing of tax revenues and spending outlays each fiscal year, limits Federal Government spending to eight-teen percent (18%) of Gross Domestic Product or less, requires a two-thirds majority roll call vote for any proposed tax increase in the House of Representatives and Senate and where the only exception to a surplus budget or balanced budget is the passage of a declaration of war that would require unbalanced budgets and increases in the national debt.

Ron Paul Ad – Conviction

DEBT CEILING | Ron Paul | Debt Crisis

Michele Bachmann: Courage

Raising the Debt Ceiling: It Just Makes Sense. Not.

America is bankrupt

Laurence Kotlikof

“…THE US has a fiscal gap—the present value of all its future spending (including servicing its official debt) less all its future taxes of $202 trillion—almost 14 times GDP. Greece, by comparison, has a fiscal gap of about 11 times GDP. To close the US fiscal gap would require raising all federal taxes, immediately and permanently by almost two thirds!

The Economist as well as all other financial media as well as virtually all economists (academic and business) and policymakers are focusing on the official debt. For the US, the official debt is $9 trillion. This is minor compared to the fiscal gap, which includes all liabilities, official and unofficial. The fiscal gap is huge compare to the official debt because Uncle Sam has spent six decades accumulating massive obligations to make social insurance payments, which it carefully kept off the books. …”

U.S. funding for future promises lags by trillions

By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

“…The government added $5.3 trillion in new financial obligations in 2010, largely for retirement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. That brings to a record $61.6 trillion the total of financial promises not paid for.

This gap between spending commitments and revenue last year equals more than one-third of the nation’s gross domestic product.

Medicare alone took on $1.8 trillion in new liabilities, more than the record deficit prompting heated debate between Congress and the White House over lifting the debt ceiling.

Social Security added $1.4 trillion in obligations, partly reflecting longer life expectancies. Federal and military retirement programs added more to the financial hole, too.

Corporations would be required to count these new liabilities when they are taken on — and report a big loss to shareholders. Unlike businesses, however, Congress postpones recording spending commitments until it writes a check.

The $61.6 trillion in unfunded obligations amounts to $528,000 per household. That’s more than five times what Americans have borrowed for everything else — mortgages, car loans and other debt. It reflects the challenge as the number of retirees soars over the next 20 years and seniors try to collect on those spending promises.

“The (federal) debt only tells us what the government owes to the public. It doesn’t take into account what’s owed to seniors, veterans and retired employees,” says accountant Sheila Weinberg, founder of the Institute for Truth in Accounting, a Chicago-based group that advocates better financial reporting. “Without accurate accounting, we can’t make good decisions.” …”

A SUMMARY OF THE 2011 ANNUAL REPORTS
Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees

A MESSAGE TO THE PUBLIC:

Each year the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds report on the current and projected financial status of the two programs. This message summarizes our 2011 Annual Reports.

The financial conditions of the Social Security and Medicare programs remain challenging. Projected long-run program costs for both Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable under currently scheduled financing, and will require legislative modifications if disruptive consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers are to be avoided.

The long-run financial challenges facing Social Security and Medicare should be addressed soon. If action is taken sooner rather than later, more options and more time will be available to phase in changes so that those affected have adequate time to prepare. Earlier action will also afford elected officials with a greater opportunity to minimize adverse impacts on vulnerable populations, including lower-income workers and those who are already substantially dependent on program benefits.

Both Social Security and Medicare, the two largest federal programs, face substantial cost growth in the upcoming decades due to factors that include population aging as well as the growth in expenditures per beneficiary. Through the mid-2030s, due to the large baby-boom generation entering retirement and lower-birth-rate generations entering employment, population aging is the largest single factor contributing to cost growth in the two programs. Thereafter, the continued rapid growth in health care cost per beneficiary becomes the larger factor.

Tax increases will put the economy into another recession or depression.

Monetization of the debt by the Federal Reserve only leads to defaulting on the debt by debasing or devaluing of the currency which results in rising prices or inflation and a decrease in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar.

Explanation of Fed Monetizing US Debt

Quantitative Easing Explained

The gang of six compromise is a betrayal of the American people.

No deal.

Background Articles and Videos

Debt hope: Obama praises ‘Gang of Six’ plan

Obama, some Republicans laud Senate ‘Gang of Six’ deficits plan as a way ahead on debt limit

“…President Barack Obama and a startling number of Republican senators lauded a bipartisan deficit-reduction plan Tuesday that includes $1 trillion in higher taxes, raising hopes of a last-minute compromise to repair the nation’s finances while averting a government default. Wall Street saluted as well. …”

Obama Backs New Senate Debt Plan

“…The proposal would cut spending, overhaul entitlement programs such as Medicare, rework the tax code, and make significant changes to Social Security. He said he still hadn’t read all the details of the plan, and said it will be difficult for all parties to reach agreement.

The plan is sweeping in its scope but was thought for months to be both overly ambitious and slightly ambiguous, which nearly led the effort to collapse in recent weeks. But the plan was revived, in part by its lead authors—Sens. Mark Warner (D., Va.) and Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.)—and the flood of bipartisan support coming out of the meeting surprised them both, the lawmakers said.

Mr. Obama’s endorsement of a bipartisan Senate deficit-reduction proposal, however, could isolate conservative House Republicans who have yet to embrace the president’s call for a deficit-cutting plan that includes tax-code changes. It faces an uncertain future in the House, and even in the Senate, however.

Senate Democratic leaders reacted cautiously, saying the Gang of Six plan had come too late to be incorporated into legislation increasing the debt ceiling.

Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill), one of six senators who helped crafted the plan, said it wouldn’t form part of a debt-ceiling package that must be passed by Congress before Aug. 2. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said he thought there could be elements of the plan that might be wrapped into the legislation increasing the debt ceiling.

Aides said the plan still lacked many crucial details. Its release, instead, would influence the budget landscape after Aug. 2, aides said. …”

“…Central parts of the plan would:

• Impose immediate spending cuts and caps that reduce the deficit by $500 billion over 10 years.

• Make changes to Social Security to make the program solvent over 75 years.

• Direct key congressional committees to find specific levels of deficit reduction within their areas of jurisdiction. If the committees fail, then five Democratic and five Republican senators would be able to offeKr their own deficit-reduction plan as a replacement.

Messrs. Warner and Chambliss said they asked the other lawmakers at the meeting to report back to them within 24 hours with any feedback, and several lawmakers said the group had already begun drafting legislation. …”